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THOMAS ALVA EDISON 

SIXTY YEARS OF AN 
INVENTOR'S LIFE 



BY 

FRANCIS ARTHUR JONES 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL ^ CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



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UBRARY of CONGRESS j 

Two C«Dy R^eived 

NOV 14 1907 

CopyrJiht Entry 

^^4^4; /*/ my 

CLASS/^ XXc, N6, 

COPY B. 



^:.o^ 



Copyright, 1907, by 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Published, November, 1907 



TO 



THOMAS ALVA EDISON 



TRIBUTE 



OF 



ADMIRATION AND FRIENDSHIP 



PREFACE 

IN the preparation of this book the author has 
received, and here acknowledges, the invaluable 
co-operation of many persons who knew Mr. Edison 
in his younger days, and who cheerfully placed at his 
service the result of their acquaintance and association 
with the inventor. To the American Press generally 
the writer is indebted for much valued assistance, and 
especially grateful does he feel towards the following: 
to the Editor of the Electrical Review for permission 
to incorporate Edison's own account of the circum- 
stances under which he erected the first power-house- 
for the distribution of the electric light; to Mr. W. 
K. L. Dickson, the consulting electrician ; to Mr. J. R. 
Randolph, private secretary to Mr. Edison, Mr. Frank 
L. Dyer, chief of the Legal Department, and the late 
Dr. Wangemann, phonographic expert, for much in- 
teresting " inside " information. 

To the inventor himself the writer is grateful for 
all the time he spent away from his experimental 
laboratory to give, with his customary cheerfulness 
and good-nature, much of the personal history which 

vii 



viii THOMAS ALVA EDISON 

is here recorded. To Mrs. Edison acknowledgment 
should be made for the loan of various portraits of 
her distinguished husband taken in his younger days ; 
for a copy of the paper (the only one believed to be 
in existence) which Edison printed and published on 
the train at the age of fourteen; and for a lecture 
written by Mr. Edison many years ago recounting 
the results of experiments made in connection with 
platinum wire during his invention of the incandescent 
electric light. 

This book is in no sense an exhaustive " Life " of 
Edison, and, indeed, could not be, seeing that the 
inventor is still young in heart and enthusiasm, and 
that there are probably many years of his brilliant 
career still to run. His grandfather and great grand- 
father lived to be centenarians, and their noted de- 
scendant gives every indication of coming into healthy 
competition with them in the matter of a long life. 
And although Mr. Edison avers that he has " quit the 
inventing business " and is now devoting himself 
almost exclusively to pure science, there is every 
reason to hope that by his investigations many scien- 
tific problems will yet be solved, and that some of 
the secrets which Nature still holds will be revealed 
through him. 

FRANCIS ARTHUR JONES. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

WHERE EDISON WAS BORN .1 



CHAPTER II 

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH ..II 

CHAPTER III 
NEWSAGENT AND TELEGRAPHIST 30 

CHAPTER IV 

IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT ...... 39 

CHAPTER V 

HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 49 



xii THOMAS ALVA EDISON 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 62 

CHAPTER VII 

THE TELEPHONE •73 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 97 

CHAPTER IX 

EXPERIMENTS WITH PLATINUM WIRE . . . • I3I 

CHAPTER X 

THE PHONOGRAPH I39 

CHAPTER XI 

THE KINETOSCOPE, MAGNETIC ORE SEPARATOR, ETC. . 17I 

CHAPTER XII 

SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 186 

CHAPTER XIII 

WAR MACHINES 204 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER XIV 

PAGE 

ELECTROCUTION 2l6 

CHAPTER XV 
THE STORAGE BATTERY 230 

CHAPTER XVI 
THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 238 

CHAPTER XVII 
NOTION BOOKS 269 

CHAPTER XVIII 
BANQUETS . 274 

CHAPTER XIX 
IN EUROPE .287 

CHAPTER XX 
HOME LIFE 299 

CHAPTER XXI 
HIS PERSONALITY , 31I 



xiv THOMAS ALVA EDISON 

CHAPTER XXII 

PAGE 
PHOTOGRAPHING THE WIZARD 335 

CHAPTER XXIII 

SOME ANECDOTES 340 

CHAPTER XXIV 

HIS OPINIONS 358 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

EDISON AT THE AGE OF FOUR . . . To face page 8 ' 

EDISON WHEN A NEWSBOY ON THE GRAND 

TRUNK „ ,, 8 

EDISON AT THE AGE OF NINETEEN . . „ „ 46 -^ 

EDISON AT FORTY „ ,,46 

EDISON AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-FOUR . „ ,, 66'*'' 

EDISON AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-EIGHT . „ „ 66 

MR. EDISON IN HIS CHEMICAL LABORATORY, 

ORANGE, N.J ,, ,,94 

MR. EDISON EXPERIMENTING IN HIS PRIVATE 

LABORATORY „ ,, 120^ 

THE EDISON BAND MAKING A PHONOGRAPHIC 

RECORD ....... „ ,,158 

EDISON REPLYING TO SOME PUZZLING QUES- 
TIONS „ „ 184 , 

LIBRARY AT THE EDISON LABORATORY, 

ORANGE, NJ „ „ 200 

XV 



xvi THOMAS ALVA EDISON 

CHARGING AN EDISON STORAGE BATTERY 
IN THE GARAGE ATTACHED TO THE 

LABORATORY To face page 234 

LEGAL DEPARTMENT, EDISON LABORATORY, 

ORANGE, NJ „ ,,252 

MR. EDISON LISTENING TO A PHONOGRAPHIC 

RECORD „ ,, 272 

MR. EDISON'S "den" IN HIS HOME IN . 

LLEWELLYN PARK, NJ ., .. 304 

MR. AND MRS. EDISON AND FAMILY ON THE 
PORCH OF THEIR HOME AT LLEWELLYN 
PARK, N.J „ ,,316 

MR. AND MRS. EDISON IN THE CHEMICAL 

LABORATORY „ ,,338 

PRESS MESSAGE RECEIVED AND WRITTEN 
OUT BY MR. EDISON AFTER TWENTY- 
SIX YEARS' ABSENCE FROM THE TELE- 
GRAPH KEY „ „ 350 

EDISON EXAMINING A STATEMENT REN- 
DERED BY ONE OF HIS WORKPEOPLE . „ „ 360 

TESTING A PHONOGRAPHIC RECORD IN THE 

EXPERIMENTAL ROOM .... „ „ 372 



CHAPTER I 

WHERE EDISON WAS BORN 

IT was a cold day in February, 1847, ^^^ the 
little town of Milan, Ohio, was noisy with the 
rumble of farm wagons carrying wheat to the Canal 
for shipment to Lake Erie; the wharf was crowded 
with farmers, shippers, labourers, and idlers, all 
gathered together to assist or retard the weighing 
and loading of the grain; everywhere appeared 
bustle and movement save, perhaps, in the Edison 
homestead, where the advent of a new life was 
awaited. 

The Edison home was built on elevated ground, 
and from the windows an excellent view of the 
Canal and the Huron River could be obtained. Mr. 
Samuel Edison was not down on the wharf — where 
every other male member of the community appeared 
to have assembled — having preferred to remain in- 
doors until the birth of his child was safely accom- 
plished. He was a tall man, over six feet in height, 
somewhat thin though indicating giant strength. His 
bearded face was full of resolution tempered with 
good-nature, while the eyes were kindly. As he stood 
looking on the busy scene below, he little thought 
that the event he was awaiting was one which would 
have a direct bearing on future generations. 

I 



2 WHERE EDISON WAS BORN 

Presently the nurse who had been looking after 
Mrs. Edison — a good-hearted neighbour — entered 
the room and informed Mr. Edison that he was the 
father of a fine, sturdy boy. " A pretty child," said 
the nurse, " fair, with grey eyes — the very image of 
his mother." Mr. Edison received the news philo- 
sophically, and a little later, when allowed to see the 
child, he regarded it with great interest. The boy 
certainly was like his mother, that was a fact, and the 
father expressed his pleasure at the resemblance, and 
remarked that if he grew like her in disposition as 
well as feature then he would indeed prove a blessing 
to them. His mother adored him from the moment 
he was placed in her arms, and there was from the 
first an affection between them which increased as 
the child grew. 

Samuel Edison had emigrated to Milan in 1838, 
having fled thither from Canada, where he had fallen 
into disgrace through taking too active a part in the 
Papineau Rebellion. He owned land in the Dominion 
which he had received as a gift from the Govern- 
ment, and when it became known that he also was 
among the rebels the grant was forfeited, and Mr. 
Samuel Edison found it wise to make hasty tracks 
for the St. Clair River. In his flight from Canadian 
territory he walked 182 miles without sleep, for his 
powers of endurance were no less remarkable than 
those which afterwards characterised his son. 

On reaching Milan, Samuel Edison found that it 
was a town which would serve him well as a retreat, 
and he thereupon decided to adopt it as his future 
place of residence, eschew rebellions, and live in 
harmony both with Government and neighbour. A 
few years later he married a pretty school teacher 
named Nancy Elliot, whom he had known in his 



THE TOWN OF MILAN 3 

Canadian days, rented the small house already men- 
tioned, busied himself in various enterprises, and 
settled down to a peaceful, industrious, and contented 
life. He had seen Milan in her prosperous days, but 
the time was coming when she would rank no higher 
than a pretty suburban village, and the various 
vicissitudes through which the town passed are, 
perhaps, best described in a letter written a short 
time since by a resident. 

" Seventy years ago," says this correspondent, 
" before the railroads had penetrated the Western 
Reserve, it became necessary to establish an outlet 
for the great amount of grain requiring shipment to 
Eastern ports from Central and Northern Ohio. The 
Huron River, emptying into Lake Erie, was navigable 
only a few miles from its mouth, and so a landing 
was chosen about three miles below the beautiful 
village of Milan, then in its infancy. Warehouses for 
the storage of grain were built there, and vessels 
came up the river from Huron to receive their 
cargoes. The business proved so profitable that in a 
short time a few capitalists conceived the idea of 
digging a canal from ' Lockwood Landing ' to Milan, 
thus bringing navigation to their village. 

" The project was carried out, and soon Milan 
became a prosperous grain market. A dozen ware- 
houses were built on the bank of the canal, and my 
earliest recollections are associated with the wagon- 
loads of grain in bags standing in front of my 
father's warehouse, having been drawn by oxen or 
horses from all sections of the surrounding country ; 
and in the busy season the line would extend from 
one to two miles out on the main road, each awaiting 
its turn for the slow process of loading and weighing 
the grain. 



4 WHERE EDISON WAS BORN 

" It was a glorious prospect for Milan. Ship- 
building soon became a prominent industry, and 
many fine vessels, including six revenue cutters, were 
launched in the waters of the canal. The village 
now had a thriving population of independent, refined 
people. A Presbyterian Church was established with 
a ' Huron Institute ' as an outgrowth which became 
famous through all sections of the State. Other 
Churches were organised and houses of worship 
erected — Episcopal, Methodist, and, some years later, 
Roman Catholic. Graded schools were established, 
and in every direction the progress was marked. 

" But, alas for Milan's brilliant future ! An enter- 
prising railroad made overtures to pass through the 
village, but the canal capitalists could see no avenue 
leading to prosperity more swiftly than the ditch they 
had dug, and they awoke one day to the knowledge 
that Norwalk and Wakeman had cut them off from 
railroad communication, and their trade soon became 
as stagnant as the waters of their beloved canal. Oh, 
the bitter irony of fate that one should be born in 
their corporation who was destined to create an 
entire revolution in the mode of rapid transit, that a 
child born in a house on a bluff overlooking the canal 
should be endowed with wonderful perceptions of 
chained lightning ! 

" And soon the exodus of our business men to 
other States began. You will find throughout the 
Union to-day men of ability, prominent in pro- 
fessional and commercial circles, who once claimed 
Milan as their home. The old * Huron Institute' was 
converted into the * Western Reserve Normal School,' 
and proved a noted and beloved resort of learning 
for hundreds of teachers now scattered throughout 
the length and breadth of the land, and the old 



A GOOD CHILD 5 

brick building still stands, a monument of pleasant 
memories. 

"If you would view the birthplace of Edison 
to-day, take passage on the electric railway from 
Norwalk to Sandusky, and you will be borne swiftly 
along through a section of rich farm lands and a 
beautiful hilly country that presents a succession of 
picturesque scenery, especially along the banks of the 
Huron River. At Milan you can leave the car and 
wander at will through the little village nestling 
among the hills. There are few attractions for the 
stranger. The old-time Sabbath-like stillness per- 
vades the air, broken only at stated times when the 
echo of the locomotive wheels from two railroads 
sounds over the hills. 

"There is a public square in the centre of the 
business portion of the town surrounding a handsome 
monument erected to the memory of the volunteers 
from that vicinity who enlisted in the Fifty-fifth and 
Sixty-seventh O.V.I. There are green-shaded trees, 
comfortable homes, some fine residences, and a 
cultured Law-and-Gospel-loving community ; and 
there is a cemetery, so tastefully inviting that people 
who ever lived in Milan ask to be taken back there 
for their last abiding rest. You will not find any 
canal, but perhaps the oldest inhabitant can point 
out to you a slight depression in the ground v/hich 
might be traced for a few miles as the bed of the old 
channel, now mostly under cultivation as vegetable 
gardens." 

And here it* was, when Milan revelled in her 
prosperity, that Thomas Alva Edison was born and 
passed the first seven years of his life. In infancy 
he was what mothers and nurses would call a "good" 
child, for he seldom cried, and his temper, from the 



6 WHERE EDISON WAS BORN 

moment when he could distinguish between pleasure 
and pain, was an angelic one. He is said to have 
cracked jokes when a baby, and from the time when 
he began to " take notice " he was quite conscious of 
the humorous side of a situation. This characteristic 
he probably inherited from his father, who, like 
Lincoln, enjoyed a good story. The serious side of 
his nature came from his mother, not so much as an 
inheritance perhaps, but because during his early 
years he was constantly with her. To him his 
mother was something more than a fond parent, 
and his love for her was of that superlative quality 
which ever remained one of the strongest attributes 
of his nature. Many years later — long after her 
death, when fame and fortune had come to him — 
interviewers would ask the inventor to tell them 
something about his mother. But her loss had been 
so great a grief to him that he never could speak of 
her to strangers — only to those who had known her 
and appreciated her goodness, and who could realise 
a fraction of all that she had been to him. Once, 
however, he broke down this reserve, and to a 
writer in the New York World he spoke of her in 
words which indicated something of the strength 
of those ties which had bound them together. 

" I did not have my mother very long," he said on 
this occasion, " but in that length of time she cast 
over me an influence which has lasted all my life. 
The good effects of her early training I can never lose. 
If it had not been for her appreciation and her faith 
in me at a critical time in my experience, I should 
very likely never have become an inventor. You see, 
my mother was a Canadian girl who used to teach 
school in Nova Scotia. She believed that many of 
the boys who turned out badly by the time they 



HIS MOTHER 7 

grew to manhood would have become valuable citizens 
if they had been handled in the right way when they 
were young. Her years of experience as a school 
teacher taught her many things about human nature, 
and especially about boys. After she married my 
father and became a mother, she applied that same 
theory to me. 

" I was always a careless boy, and with a mother 
of different mental calibre I should have probably 
turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, 
her goodness were potent powers to keep me in the 
right path. I remember I used never to be able to 
get along at school. I don't know now what it was, 
but I was always at the foot of the class. I used to 
feel that the teachers never sympathised with me and 
that my father thought that I was stupid, and at last 
I almost decided that I must really be a dunce. My 
mother was always kind, always sympathetic, and 
she never misunderstood or misjudged me. But I 
was afraid to tell her all my difficulties at school, for 
fear she too might lose her confidence in me. 

" One day I overheard the teacher tell the inspector 
that I was * addled ' and it would not be worth while 
keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by 
this last straw that I burst out crying and went home 
and told my mother about it. Then I found out 
what a good thing a good mother was. She came 
out as my strong defender. Mother love was aroused, 
mother pride wounded to the quick. She brought me 
back to the school and angrily told the teacher that 
he didn't know what he was talking about, that I had 
more brains than he himself, and a lot more talk like 
that. In fact, she was the most enthusiastic champion 
a boy ever had, and I determined right then that 
I would be worthy of her and show her that her 



8 WHERE EDISON WAS BORN 

confidence was not misplaced. My mother was the 
making of me. She was so true, so sure of me ; and 
I felt that I had some one to live for, some one I 
must not disappoint. The memory of her will always 
be a blessing to me." 

When " Al," as his mother always called him, 
emerged from baby clothes and was able to walk 
and talk, neighbours soon made the discovery that 
he was rather a remarkable-looking child. He had a 
fine, large, well-shaped head, of which his mother was 
very proud. But his hair was a terrible trial to her. 
It would not curl, it would not part, it would not lie 
down like other boys'. He was always rumpling it 
with his baby fingers, and so the only thing to be 
done was to keep it "close" — a plan which was 
advocated by his father and adopted, after a mental 
struggle, by his mother. He had a broad, smooth 
forehead, deep-set eyes, almost straight brows, and the 
sweetest, most amiable, and lovable mouth ever seen 
in a baby. His high forehead was usually unruffled 
and serene, except when he asked those innumerable 
questions which came to his lips almost as soon as he 
could talk. Being greatly puzzled over any matter 
in which he happened to take an especial interest, he 
would scowl a little. " When this occurred," writes 
some one who knew him when a child, " his lips went 
tight together, his brows contracted, and as he got 
busy with his infant schemes he would go fast and 
with a walk that showed all kinds of determination." 

At four years of age he was friendly with all the 
neighbouring children — especially boys — and every 
one liked him. He was ready to take part in any 
escapade suggested, and when his mother'*^ back was 
turned for a moment he would slip out of the house, 
take a short cut to the canal by scrambling down the 




•z < 

2 O 




CHASING THE OLD GOOSE 9 

bluff, and a few minutes later his anxious parent 
would detect him from one of the windows running 
along the tow-path as fast as his sturdy legs would 
carry him. From there he would make his way to 
the shipbuilding yards, pick up and examine every 
tool he could find, ask a hundred questions of the 
busy workmen, get under their feet and in their path, 
and bother them generally. But they liked him 
nevertheless ; though with that lack of instinct which 
is sometimes so hard to understand they often 
thought his questions foolish, and, as a consequence, 
the boy anything but bright. Even his father, forty 
years later, said that many folk considered he was 
a little lacking in ordinary intelligence, probably 
because they could not always give him satisfactory 
replies to the puzzling questions which he put to 
them. He was for ever asking his father the reason 
for this and that, and when, in very desperation and 
thinking frankness the better policy, the unhappy 
parent would answer, " I don't know," the boy would 
reduce him to still deeper depths of distraction by 
instantly demanding, " Why don't you know ? " 

There are many people in Milan to-day who 
remember little Al Edison, and they will tell you 
how on one occasion he chased the old goose off her 
nest and tried to hatch out the eggs himself by 
sitting on them, just to satisfy a natural desire to 
know how it was done. A little later on he evinced 
his first interest in avian flight by endeavouring to 
persuade the "hired girl" to swallow some fearful 
concoction, with the promise that if she did so she 
would certainly be able to fly. The young woman 
firmly declined to try the experiment, but Al, who 
in all probability thoroughly believed what he had 
undoubtedly been told, was so persistent in his 



10 WHERE EDISON WAS BORN 

entreaties that she would try even a little, that at 
last she swallowed a small dose, and immediately 
became so ill that the doctor had to be summoned. 
The boy expressed regret that she was sick, but 
appeared to think that her inability to fly lay with 
herself and not with the liquid. 



CHAPTER II 

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

WHEN Al was seven years of age his father 
decided that the time had come when it 
would be wise to leave Milan. Even at that period 
the town had begun to lose prestige and work of 
every kind commenced to suffer in consequence. 
Mr. Edison was a man who believed in having an 
eye to the future, and the reduction of tariff on the 
canal having already started, owing to the construc- 
tion of the Lake Shore Railroad, he foresaw that the 
end of Milan as a commercial centre was in sight. 
He had many consultations with his wife regarding 
the advisability of moving, and she, sensible woman 
that she was, stifled the longing to remain in their 
pretty, peaceful home, and declared her readiness to 
make any change that might result in advantage to 
the family. 

Discussions regarding the best place to settle in 
were many, and at last it was decided to begin life 
anew in Port Huron, Michigan, a prosperous town 
whose chief characteristics were bustle and enterprise. 
Thither Mr. Edison made several trips in advance^ 
inspected many homes which he thought might prove 
suitable for him and his small family, and eventually 

chose one which was large and comfortable, a fine, 

II 



12 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

roomy house located in the centre of an extensive 
grove containing several apple and pear trees. It 
was, in fact, one of the best residences in the locality, 
situated amid country surroundings yet within easy 
distance of the town. Here the family arrived one 
evening in the fall of 1854, and were soon comfortably 
installed in their new home. 

Their residence in Port Huron proved no less 
happy than the years they had spent in Milan. Al, 
now a sturdy boy " going on eight," was the same 
cheerful little lad he had been in the Ohio home, 
good-tempered, fond of fun, and as sharp as a needle ; 
just as curious regarding the meaning of everything 
and rather more determined than before to strip his 
relations and friends of all the knowledge they 
possessed. He was as passionately devoted to his 
mother as in the Milan days, and there was also a link 
of affection forging between him and his father which 
no years of separation were to sever. 

Al received all his instruction from his mother, 
with the exception of about three months when he 
went to the Huron Public School and left on account 
of the incident already narrated. Mrs. Edison was 
very fond of children even if they were not her own, 
and soon the little ones who passed the house every 
morning on their way to school began to look upon 
her as a friend. One of these very children — now a 
woman of sixty-five — whose acquaintaince with the 
Edison family began in these early days, recently said : 

" I well remember the old homestead, surrounded 
by the orchard, and frequently saw Mrs. Edison and 
her son sitting on the porch reading or conversing. 
Sometimes I noticed that she was instructing him in 
his lessons and I often wondered why he never went 
to school. I remember how much alike I thought 



THE EDISON OBSERVATORY 13 

them at the time. The boy was essentially his 
mother's son, every characteristic and every feature 
were hers, and I think now that it is to her that he 
is indebted for his genius. He had the same deep-set 
eyes, the smooth, broad brow, and the strong chin. 
Their mouths were very similar and each had the 
same kindly and, at times, humorous smile hovering 
about the lips. Mrs. Edison loved every child in the 
neighbourhood and used to meet us at the gate as we 
passed on our way to school with her hands full of 
apples, doughnuts, and other goodies that she knew 
we liked." 

Mr. Edison had not been many months in the new 
house before he conceived the idea that it might be 
improved by the addition of an observatory, and, 
being a handy man and able to carry out most plans 
which his brain suggested, he started to erect a tower 
from designs which he had himself drawn up. It was 
built behind the house, was about eighty feet high, 
and commanded a glorious view over the broad river 
and the distant hills. This observatory became so 
popular that the builder decided to make a small 
charge to strangers who desired to view the surround- 
ing country from its summit, and in a neat handbill 
announced that only on payment of the modest sum 
of ten cents might the prospect of Lake Huron and 
the St. Clair River be enjoyed from the Edison Tower. 

The investment, however, did not prove a very 
profitable one, for people soon discovered that the 
ten cents somewhat detracted from the beauty of the 
scenery, and the tower was left to the sole enjoyment 
of Mr. Edison and his family. But apart from the 
charge it is just possible that visitors found the ascent 
of the observatory a little too much for their nerves. 
The structure was not a very substantial one, and 



14 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

when the wind was fresh it certainly rocked a good 
deal. Some nervous women when they got about 
half-way up and felt the building shake and tremble 
beneath their feet became so frightened that they 
would turn back and decline to proceed further. But 
Al and his mother spent many pleasant hours on the 
summit of the tower, and they were never tired of 
gazing over the magnificent stretch of land and water 
mapped out beneath them. Mr. Edison possessed an 
old telescope, which he sometimes loaned to Al, and 
the boy would " sweep "the sky-line with all the skill 
of an old explorer. 

At Port Huron the family lived for several years, 
united and happy. Mrs. Edison continued to conduct 
the education of her son with that rigid observance to 
punctuality and other rules which she would have 
exercised had she been holding a class in the public 
schools. And Al repaid her well by his seriousness, 
his wonderful gift for absorbing knowledge, and his 
ability to remember things. He had, indeed, a 
marvellous memory and never needed to be told 
twice regarding any matter which really interested 
him. He had learned his alphabet in a few lessons 
and his progress in reading, writing, geography, and 
arithmetic was equally rapid. At the age of nine he 
had read, or his mother had read to him, " The Penny 
Encyclopaedia," Hume's " History of England," 
" History of the Reformation," Gibbons's " Rome," 
Sears's " History of the World," and several works on 
subjects which had a wonderful fascination for him 
even at that time — electricity and science. 

He read these books seriously, too, never skipped 
the big paragraphs or passed over the uninteresting 
and difficult chapters. When he came to a particu- 
larly abstruse sentence he would get his mother to 



NEWSVENDOR ON THE GRAND TRUNK 15 

explain the facts to him and she could always 
satisfy his inquiring mind. Some of these books 
Mrs. Edison would read aloud, not to her son only but 
to her husband and other children as well. She was a 
beautiful reader, with a soft, clear, and finely modu- 
lated voice. Mr. Edison often declared in later years 
that he was sure Al understood a good deal more 
about what his wife read than he did, for at times the 
subject of the books chosen was not altogether to his 
taste. He himself did not take any great interest in 
electricity and science, though he was very fond of 
history and historical works. 

When Al was about eleven years old the idea 
occurred to him that he might assist the family 
exchequer by engaging in some work during the 
time when he was not studying. He made the 
suggestion to his mother, but for a long time she 
was averse to his becoming a breadwinner at so early 
an age. At last, however, he coaxed her around to 
his way of thinking, and finally the two consulted as 
to what kind of work would be best suited to him. 
Al possessed opinions then very similar to those 
which he holds to-day, viz., that it does not matter 
much what you do so long as the work is honest and 
brings in the cash. And therefore he decided that 
for the time being he might do worse than sell 
newspapers. His idea, however, was not to shout the 
news-sheets through the streets, but to obtain a post 
where the work would be less precarious ; and so with 
that excellent judgment which has characterised 
most of his business transactions he applied for the 
privilege of selling newspapers, books, magazines, 
candies, &c., on the trains of the Grand Trunk Rail- 
road running between Port Huron and Detroit. 

During the time that his application was being 



i6 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

considered, for even then he beh'eved in his own 
modernised version of the old proverb, " Everything 
comes to him who hustles while he waits," he 
managed to make a few nickels by selling newspapers 
on the streets. He had only been a short while at 
this work, however, when he received a letter inform- 
ing him that he might have the job he had applied 
for and could commence business as soon as he 
pleased. He was very much elated, but his mother, 
ever fearful for his safety, was still somewhat worried. 
She had vivid visions of smash-ups with Al beneath 
the overturned engine, but he succeeded in laughing 
away her fears and a few days later entered on his 
duties with a light heart. 

Some account of these days has come to us from 
Mr. Barney Maisonville, son of Captain Oliver 
Maisonville, who for over thirty years had charge 
of the Grand Trunk Transfer Steamers at Fort 
Gratiot and Detroit. Mr. Maisonville became 
acquainted with young Edison just prior to his 
going into business as a newsboy, but it was not 
until the war broke out that he was thrown into close 
friendship with the future inventor. " As near as I 
can make out," said Mr. Maisonville on one occasion 
when speaking of Edison, "young Al obtained the 
privilege of selling newspapers, books, fruit, &c., on 
the trains running between Port Huron and Detroit 
as a favour or for very small pay and received all the 
profits himself One day he came and asked my 
parents to let me go with him on Saturdays, when 
there was no school, and help him with his work. 
Consent was given and thereafter for more than a 
year I was a * candy butcher ' on the train. The war 
was going on and there was a big demand for news- 
papers. 



THE FIRST LABORATORY 17 

" The train left Port Huron about 7 a.m., and 
arrived in Detroit at 10 a.m. Returning, it would 
leave Detroit at 4.30 p.m., and get back to Port Huron 
at 7.30 p.m. He instructed me regarding my duties 
on the first Saturday and then let me do all the busi- 
ness afterwards by myself, and while on the train I 
very seldom saw him. There was a car on the train 
divided into three compartments — one for baggage, 
one for United States Mail, and the other for express 
matter. The express compartment was never used 
and Al employed it for a printing office and a 
chemical laboratory. In it were stored jars of 
chemicals to make electrical currents, telegraph 
instruments, a printing press, some type and a 
couple of ink-rollers. 

" Al was very quiet and preoccupied in disposition. 
He was of ordinary size, well built, with a thick head 
of brown hair and quite neglectful of his personal 
appearance. His mother kept him supplied with 
clean shirts and he always washed his face and hands, 
but I think in those days he did not often comb his 
hair. He would buy a cheap suit of clothes and wear 
them until they were worn out, when he would buy 
another. He never by any chance blacked his boots. 
Most boys like to have money, but he never seemed 
to care for it himself. The receipts of his sales, when 
I sold for him, were from eight to ten dollars the day, 
of which about one half was profit. But when I 
handed the money to him he would simply take it and 
put it into his pocket. One day I asked him to count 
it, but he said : ' Oh, never mind, I guess it's all right' 

" When we got to Detroit we would take dinner at 
the Cass House, for which he would pay. Some of 
our time in Detroit was spent in buying goods to sell 
on the train, and we would go to the stores and 

3 



i8 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

buy papers, stationery, prize packets, fruit, peanuts, 
oranges, candies, &c. We carried the stationery and 
papers down to the cars ourselves, and the fruit men 
generally sent their goods to the depot 

" Al was a curious but lovable fellow. I was rather 
high-spirited at that time, and I verily believe that I 
was one of the few persons who could make him 
laugh, though no one enjoyed a good story better 
than Al. He was always studying out something, 
and usually had a book dealing with some scientific 
subject in his pocket. If you spoke to him he would 
answer intelligently enough, but you could always see 
that he was thinking of something else when he was 
talking. Even when playing checkers he would move 
the pieces about carelessly as if he did it only to keep 
company, and not for any love of the game. His 
conversation was deliberate, and he was slow in his 
actions and carriage. 

"Still, he showed sometimes that he knew how 
money could be made. When the papers containing 
the news of some big battle were published in Detroit 
he would telegraph to the station agents, who all 
liked him, and they would put up a bulletin board, 
and when the train arrived the papers would go off 
like hot cakes. I believe, however, that he would 
sooner have sat in his caboose studying than come 
out on the platform and sell newspapers. 

" His own paper, the Weekly Herald, was a little 
bit of a thing about the size of a lady's hand- 
kerchief Of course he did not set it up altogether 
on the train, because you cannot set type and have it 
stand up on a car, but it was printed there. Some- 
times the stationmaster at Mount Clemens, who was 
also a telegraph operator, would catch some country 
news on the wires, and he would write it down and 



THE WEEKLY HERALD 19 

hand it to Al when the train came in. This news, of 
course, would be later than that contained in the daily 
papers. He would immediately retire to his caboose, 
set it up, put it on the little form, and before the 
train reached Ridgeway he would have it printed off. 
I sold lots of these papers for three cents each." 

Of the Weekly Herald there is, so far as is known, 
but one copy now in existence, and this is in the pos- 
session of Mrs. Edison, who treasures it beyond any 
other souvenir of her husband's early days. It hangs 
on the wall of the inventor's " den " at Glenmont, 
Llewellyn Park, the present residence of the family, 
and is preserved between two sheets of glass, so that 
both sides of the interesting little journal maybe read. 
It is in a very good condition, if rather seamed down 
the centre, evidently through being carried folded for 
some time in the owner's pocket. The date on 
this copy is February 3, 1862, so it must have been 
published more than forty-five years ago, just before 
the editor had reached the patriarchal age of fifteen. 
The paper is the size of a large sheet of business 
" note," printed on both sides and unfolded. Single 
numbers were sold at three cents apiece, but monthly 
or yearly subscribers obtained the paper for eight 
cents per month. At the height of its popularity 
the paper had a regular subscription circulation 
of 500 copies, while another couple of hundred were 
bought by chance passengers on the train. All the 
work — setting up, printing, and publishing — being 
performed by the proprietor himself, a clear profit of 
something like forty-five dollars a month accrued 
from this modest publication. 

The copy of the Weekly Herald which was shown 
to the present writer by Mrs. Edison contains plenty 
of interesting news, and though the spelling and 



20 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

punctuation are not perfect, the " editing " generally 
reflects the greatest credit on the young proprietor. 
The paper is a three-column sheet, the first column 
being headed as follows : — 

THE WEEKLY HERALD. 

Published by A. Edison. 

Terms. 

The Weekly Eight Cents per Month. 

The first part of the paper is devoted to " Local 
Intelegence," and contains the following items of 
news and gossip : 

" Premiums : — We believe that the Grand Trunk Railway, 
give premiums, every six months to their Engineers, who use 
the least Wood and Oil, running the usual journey. Now we 
have rode with Mr. E. L. Northrop, one of their Engineers, 
and we do not believe you could fall in with another Engineer, 
more careful, or attentive to his Engine, being the most steady 
driver that we have ever rode behind (and we consider our- 
selves some judge haveing been Railv^^ay riding for over two 
years constantly,) always kind, and obligeing, and ever at his 
post. His Engine we understand does not cost one fourth for 
repairs what the other Engines do. We would respectfully 
recommend him to the kindest consideration of the G. T. R. 
Offices. 

" The more to do the more done : — We have observed along 
the line of railway at the different stations where there is only 
one Porter, such as at Utica, where he is fully engaged, from 
morning until late at night, that he has everything clean, and 
in first class order, even the platforms the snow does not lie 
for a week after it has fallen, but is swept off before it is 
almost down, at other stations where there is two Porters 
things are visa a versa. 

"J. S. P. Hathaway runs a daily Stage from the station to 
New Baltimore in connection with all Passenger Trains. 

" Professor [name unreadable] has returned to Canada 

after entertaining delighted audiences at New Baltimore for 
the past two weeks listening to his comical lectures, etc. 



A CAPABLE EDITOR 21 

" Did'nt succeed : — A Gentleman by the name of Watkins, 
agent for the Hayitan government, recently tried to swindle 
the Grand Trunk Railway company of sixty-seven dollars the 
price of a valise he claimed to have lost at Sarnia, and he was 
well night successful in the undertaking. 

" But by the indominatable perseverance and energy 
of Mr. W. Smith, detective of the company, the case was 
cleared up in a very different style. It seems that the 
would be gentleman while crossing the river on the ferry 
boat, took the check off of his valise, and carried the valise 
in his hand, not forgetting to put the check in his pocket, 
the baggageman missed the baggage after leaving Port Huron, 
while looking over his book to see if he had every thing with 
him, but to his great surprise found he had lost one piece, he 
telegraphed back stateing so, but no baggage could be found. 
It was therefore given into the hands of Mr. Smith, to look 
after, in the meantime Mr. Watkins, wrote a letter to Mr. 
Tubman, Agent at Detroit, asking to be satisfied for the loss 
he had sustained in consequence, and referring Mr. Tubman 
to Mr. W. A. Howard, Esq., of Detroit, and the Hon. Messrs. 
Brown and Wilson of Toronto for reference. We hardly 
know how such men are taken in with such traveling villians, 
but such is the case, meantime Mr. Smith, cleared up the 
whole mystery by finding the lost valice in his possession and 
the Haytian agent offered to pay ten dollars for the trouble he 
had put the company to, and to have the matter hushed up, 

" Not so, we feel that the villian should have his name posted 
up in the various R. R. in the country, and then he wU be able 
to travel in his true colors. 

" We have noticed of late, the large quantitys of men, taken 
by Leftenant Donohue, 14 regt. over the G. T. R. to their 
rendezvous at Ypsalanta and on inquiring find that he has 
recruited more men than any other man in the regiment. If 
his energy and perseverance in the field when he meets the 
enemy, is as good as it was in his recruiting on the line of the 
Grand Trunk R. he will make a mark that the enemy won't 
soon forget. 

" Heavy Shipments at Baltimore — we were delayid the other 
day at New Baltimore Station, waiting for a friend, and while 
waiting, took upon ourselves to have a peep at things generly ; 
we saw in the freight house of the GTR. 400 bis of flour and 
150 hogs, waiting for shipment to Portland." 

A certain section of the paper was devoted to 
announcements of births, deaths, and marriages 
likely to interest subscribers and their friends, and 



22 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

not infrequently the young editor would be handed 
an item of the kind by one of his many patrons. He 
took care to let all , know that the columns of his 
publication were always open for such announce- 
ments — not for payment, but as a courtesy. The 
present copy of the paper has no death or marriage 
notice, but there is a birth chronicled in the following 
succinct language : 

"BIRTH. 

" At Detroit Junction G. T. R. Refreshment Rooms on the 
2Qth inst., the wife of A. Little of a daughter." 

It would be interesting to know if the lady is 
still living. 

Two announcements of especial interest and 
encouragement to subscribers are printed, viz. : 

" We expect to enlarge our paper in a few weeks." 

" In a few weeks each subscriber will have his name printed 
on his paper." 

Then comes a little bit of philosophy which appears 
to be somewhat profound for a boy of fifteen : 

" Reason Justice and Equity, never had weight enough on 
the face of the earth to govern the councils of men." 

Next are a number of " Notices," some of which, it 
may be presumed, were either paid for as adver- 
tisements or inserted in return for "courtesies 
received " : 

" NOTICE. 

" A very large business is done at M. V. Milords Waggon 
and carriage shop, New Baltimore Station. All orders 
promptly attended to. Particular attention paid to re- 
pairing. 



ITEMS FROM THE WEEKLY HERALD 23 

" RIDGEWAY STATION. 

" A daily Stage leaves the above Station for St Clair, every 
day, Fare 75 cents. 

" A Daily stage leaves the above named place for Utica and 
Romeo, Fare $1.00. 

" Rose & Burrel, proprietors. 

"OPPISITION LINE. 

"A Daily Stage leaves Ridgeway Station for Burkes Cor. 
Armada Cor. and Romeo. 

" A Daily stage leaves Ridgeway Station on arrival of all 
passenger trains from Detroit for Memphis. 

" R. Quick, proprietor. 

"UTICA STATION. 

" A daily Stage leaves the above named Station, on arrival 
of Accommadation Train from Detroit for Utica, Disco, 
Washington and Romeo. 

" S. A. Frink, driver. Mr. Frink is one of the oldest and 
most careful drivers known in the State. (Ed.) 

"Mt. CLEMENS. 

" A daily stage leaves the above named station, for Romeo, 
on arrival of the morning train from Detroit, our stage 
arrives at Romeo two hours before any other stage. 

" Hicks & Halsy, prop." 

Then comes " The Nev^s," v^^hich must have been 
somewhat scarce that week, for it is brief. Three items 
only, tw^o of which scarcely appear to be in their 
right section, are recorded : 

"THE NEWS. 

" Cassius M. Clay will enter the army on his return home. 

" The thousandth birthday of the Empire of Russia will be 
celebrated at Novgorod in august. 

"'Let me collect myself,' as the man said when he was 
blown up by a powder mill." 

The fifth column contains the only illustration of 
which the paper boasts. It is a woodcut of a railway 



24 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

train of a somewhat antique build, the engine, with 
steam up, emitting a great quantity of very black 
smoke. The cut appropriately heads the column 
devoted to the announcements of the " Grand Trunk 
Railroad," and is useful in the present number for 
the— 

"CHANGES OF TIME. 

"Going West. 

" Express, leaves Port Huron, 7.05 P.M. 

" Mixed for Detroit, leaves Pt. Huron at 7.40 A.M. 

"Going East. 

" Express leaves Detroit, for Toronto, at 6.15 A.M. 
" Mixed for Pt. Huron leaves at 4.00 P.M. 

" Two Freight Trains each way. 

" C. R. Christie, Supt." 

" Stages " played an important part in trans- 
portation during the days that the Weekly Herald 
flourished, and therefore it is not surprising to find 
that young Edison devoted considerable space to 
announcements in connection with them. In the 
column denoting changes of time on the Grand 
Trunk there are the following advertisements of — 

" STAGES. 

" New Baltimore Station. 
"A tri-weekly stage leaves the above named station on 
every day for New Baltimore, Algonac, Swan Creek, and 
Newport. 

" S. Graves, proprietor. 

"MAIL EXPRESS. 

" Daily Express leaves New Baltimore Station every morning 
on arrival of the train from Detroit. For Baltimore, Algonac, 
Swan Creek and Newport. 

" Curtis & Bennett, proprietors. 



REGULAR SUBSCRIBERS 25 

"Pt. HURON STATION. 

"An omnibus leaves the station for Pt. Huron on the 
arrival of all trains." 

When passengers lost property or left parcels on 
the trains Edison vi^as often appealed to and asked 
to announce the fact in the columns of his paper. 
He was always obliging in this respect, and though 
he seldom got payment for these advertisements it 
was highly gratifying to him when lost property was 
returned through a notice inserted in his paper. One 
such announcement appears in the copy under in- 
spection, and is printed in large type in order to 
attract special attention : 

" LOST LOST LOST 

" A small parcel of cloth was lost on the cars. 
" The finder will be liberally rewarded." 

Though no address is given indicating the person to 
whom the lost property was to be returned, subscribers 
always understood that if they found the mislaid 
parcel, or whatever it happened to be, they must 
communicate with the " Newsagent on the Mixed," 
which was the Editor himself. 

Many of Edison's regular subscribers were inter- 
ested in farm products, and for their especial benefit 
he always devoted a certain portion of his paper to 
the market prices ruling during that week. It may 
not be without interest, therefore, to give the 
quotations as printed in this number of the Weekly 
Herald : 

" MARKETS. 

" New Baltimore. 
" Butter at 10 to 12 cents per lb. 
" Eggs at 12 cents per dozen. 
" Lard at 7 to 9 cents per lb. 



26 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

" Dressed hogs at 3.00 to 3.25 per 100 lbs. 

" Mutton at 4 to 5 cents per lb. 

" Flour at 4.50 to 4.75 per 100 lbs. 

" Beans at i.oo to 1.20 per bush. 

" Potatoes at 30 to 35 cts. per bushel. 

" Corn at 30 to 35 cts. per bush. 

" Turkeys at 50 to 65 cts. each. 

"Chickens at 10 to 12 cts. each. 

" Geese at 25 to 35 cents each. 

** Ducks at 30 cents per pair." 

The last half-column of the paper is devoted to 

''ADVERTISEMENTS" 
and contains the following notices : 

"RAILWAY EXCHANGE. 

"At Baltimore Station. 

"The above named Hotel is now open for the reception of 
Travelers. The Bar will be supplied with the best of 
Liquors, and every attention will be paid to the comfort 
of the Guests. 

" S. Graves, proprietor. 

"SPLENDID PORTABLE COPYING 

PRESSES FOR SALE AT 

Mt. CLEMENS. 

"ORDERS TAKEN BY 

The Newsagent on the Mixed. 



" Ridgeway Refreshment Rooms : — I would inform my 
friends that I have opened a Refreshment Room for the 
accommodation of the traveling public. 

" R. Allen, proprietor. 



"TO THE RAILWAY MEN. 

" Railway men send in your orders for Butter, Eggs., Lard, 
Cheese, Turkeys, Chickens and Geese. 

"W. C. HuLCH, New Baltimore Station." 



STEPHENSON COMPLIMENTS EDISON 27 

The Weekly Herald attracted the attention of 
the English engineer Stephenson, who happened to 
be travelling on the " Mixed " one day, and who 
purchased a copy. He complimented the young 
Editor on his enterprise, said the paper was as good 
as many he had seen edited by men twice his 
age, and gave an order for a thousand copies. Even 
the London Times expressed interest in the paper, 
and unbent sufficiently to quote from its columns, and 
it is more than probable that if Edison had not 
followed the life of an inventor he would have con- 
tinued his work as an editor, and, if he had, his name 
would, doubtless, have become equally famous in the 
newspaper world. 

Mr. Maisonville, the gentleman already referred 
to, was on the train when the incident occurred 
which struck the death-knell of the Weekly Herald. 
The story has been repeatedly told, with various 
alterations and additions, but here is an authentic 
account of what actually happened. Young Maison- 
ville was busily engaged in the front car selling 
papers and candies, while Edison was in the baggage 
van — or " Laboratory and Printing Shop," as the 
trainmen occasionally called it when in merry moods 
— engaged in one of his many experiments, when the 
train ran over a bit of rough road ; there was a heavy 
lurch, and a bottle of phosphorus fell to the floor of 
the car and burst into flame. The woodwork caught 
fire, and Edison was finding considerable difficulty in 
stemming the progress of the fire when Alexander 
Stevenson, the conductor, made his appearance. 

Stevenson was a Scotchman, an elderly man with 
iron-grey hair, a rubicund face, and an accent that 
would have been strong even in the heart of Mid- 
lothian. Moreover he had a temper, which may 



28 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

best be described as " hasty." He didn't waste any 
time talking while the fire was in progress, but quickly 
fetching some buckets of water, soon had the flames 
extinguished. Then he let out a flood of eloquence 
which sounded like a chapter from a Scott novel, and 
when the train arrived a few minutes later at Mt. 
Clemens Station, he pitched the young experimenter 
on to the platform, and hurled after him the type and 
printing press, the telegraph apparatus, the bottles of 
chemicals, and, in fact, the entire contents of the 
laboratory. Then he signalled the train to proceed, 
and left the future inventor forlornly standing among 
the ruins of his most cherished possessions. 

Lest it may be supposed that Conductor Stevenson 
was utterly unfeeling and entirely lacking in all 
sympathy with searchers after knowledge, a few 
words appear to be necessary. Stevenson had 
a good heart, and was by no means unfriendly 
towards Edison, but, like many other worthy Scotch- 
men, his temper was fiery, and when his wrath was 
aroused he usually acted with a good deal of haste. 
He considered that the limit of friendship was 
reached when the boy set the train — his train — on 
fire, and thereby jeopardised the lives of those com- 
mitted to his care. He argued that at such times it 
was well to act quickly, and so he summarily kicked 
the young experimenter and his belongings off the 
train at the first stopping-place, and congratulated 
himself on having done his company good service. 
Soon afterwards he resigned his position, and 
removed to a small village near St. John's, Michigan, 
where he became an important and respected member 
of the community. There he was made a Justice of 
the Peace, and for some years sat on the bench, 
where he administered the law with much more 



EDISON'S PRINTING PRESS 29 

leniency than he had shown when a conductor on the 
Grand Trunk Railroad. 

The man who sold Edison the printing-press 
used by him in the publication of his paper was 
J. A. Roys, at that time the most prominent book- 
seller in Detroit. " I sold Edison that famous 
printing-press," he often told customers who ques- 
tioned him regarding his friendship with the inventor, 
" and I have sometimes wondered what became of 
it. I suppose it was pretty well smashed up when 
Stevenson dumped it out on the platform. The 
press formerly belonged to the man who was land- 
lord of the Cass House, at one time the best 
hotel in Detroit. He used the machine to print the 
bill of fare in that hotel, but he made a failure of 
the place and went to smash. He afterwards became 
tenant of a house that I owned, but after the first 
quarter he failed to pay the rent. To reimburse me 
he turned over, among other articles, the printing- 
press. Young Edison, who was a good boy and a 
favourite of mine, bought goods of me and had the 
run of the store, saw the press, and I suppose the 
idea of publishing a paper of his own immediately 
occurred to him, for he would catch on to anything 
new like lightning. He examined the machine, got 
me to show him exactly how it worked, and finally 
bought it from me for a small sum. Afterwards I 
saw many copies of the paper he printed, and for 
several years kept some as curiosities, but they got 
torn up or lost, and now I don't believe there is one 
to be had unless he owns it himself. He was a 
smart youngster, and I always prophesied great 
things of him." 



CHAPTER III 

NEWSAGENT AND TELEGRAPHIST 

HAVING lost his laboratory on the Grand 
Trunk, Edison immediately set about finding 
some other place where he could continue his experi- 
ments. He did not condescend to make overtures to 
Stevenson for a renewal of his tenancy of the baggage- 
wagon, but took his father into his confidence, ex- 
plained matters, and begged for a room in the Port 
Huron house which he might fit up as a workshop. 
His father, however, on learning that the cause of his 
sudden exodus from the train was due to his setting 
fire to the car during his scientific investigations, at 
first declined to allow him to experiment in the house, 
but on his son promising not to store anything 
inflammable he relented, gave him a room near the 
roof, and told him he might "go ahead." So the 
boy bought more chemicals, some crude telegraph 
instruments, wire, &c., and was soon more deeply 
absorbed in his scientific studies than ever. 

He still continued to publish his paper, but 
it was set up and printed in his workshop at 
home from type which had been given to him 
by a friend connected with the Detroit Free 
Press. At this time he had over five hundred 

subscribers, so he had no desire to close down a 

30 



A NEW JOURNAL 31 

concern which was founded on so sound a basis. 
But in an unlucky hour he was persuaded by a 
journalistic friend to discontinue the Herald in 
favour of another paper of a more personal character, 
which the youthful editors and proprietors called 
Paul Pry. This journal never was a real success. 
The editors were too outspoken, and some of the 
public characters of Port Huron and the surrounding 
towns whom they " guyed " were so sensitive that 
they took offence, and were not slow in expressing 
their disapproval of the paper's policy. Indeed, 
one gentleman was so annoyed at a certain "per- 
sonal" reflecting somewhat upon himself, that on 
meeting Edison he wasted no time telling him 
what he thought of his paper, but seizing him by 
the coat collar and a certain baggy portion of his 
pants, threw him into the canal. The boy was 
a good swimmer, so that with the exception of a 
wetting he came to no harm. But he had learned 
his lesson. He argued that if others who took 
offence expressed themselves in a similar way, he 
would have little time to work out those ideas which 
were even then coursing through his brain. So he 
broke loose from Paul Pry, and the paper came to 
an inglorious end. 

He still kept his job as "candy-butcher" on the 
Grand Trunk, and the business continued to grow. 
Many stories have been written regarding these train 
days — perhaps the most interesting period of his 
early youth — and some of them have possibly been 
quite new to Mr. Edison. Here is one, however, 
which an anonymous writer declares was related to 
him by the inventor himself, and which, therefore, 
may be considered authentic. The occasion of its 
narration was a " reunion " at which were present 



32 NEWSAGENT AND TELEGRAPHIST 

Mr. Edison and a gentleman who happened also to 
have been at one time a candy-seller on the Grand 
Trunk. The two immediately began to compare 
notes, and laughed together over the way they used 
to work the peanut trick on customers. Readers 
who know nothing of the American "candy-butcher" 
and his methods may be interested in learning the 
modus operandi of this famous deception. Briefly, 
it was a trick whereby an unsuspecting client paid 
for a measure of peanuts when he really obtained 
only half that quantity. 

It was engineered in this way. The tin measures 
which the boys used were long and narrow, being 
smaller at the top than at the bottom. In filling a 
measure an adept at the trick would push it rapidly 
through the peanuts into the open basket. A few 
nuts would rattle inside, but almost immediately a 
dozen or two would jam or wedge in the narrow 
mouth of the measure. When lifted up the measure 
would appear to be full, and as the trick would be 
performed in view of the purchaser, the latter would 
suspect nothing, and innocently allow the boy 
to dump the contents of the half-empty can into his 
pocket, when, of course, all trace of the deception 
would be lost. Edison acknowledges that he some- 
times worked this trick on customers, though on one 
occasion he received such a dressing from a client 
who had detected him in the act — and who went to 
the trouble of informing all in the car as to " how it 
was done " — that he ultimately came to the conclusion 
that honesty was the best policy even among candy- 
butchers, and ever afterwards gave full measure and 
running over. 

While laughing over the remembrance of these 
days, Mr. Edison said : " A funny thing occurred 



EDISON AND THE SOUTHERNERS 33 

when I was newsboy on one of the old three-car 
trains. In my day, you know, they used to run 
trains made up of three coaches — a baggage-car, a 
smoking-car, and what we called a ladies' car. The 
ladies' car was always last in the string. Well, one 
day I was carrying my basket of nuts and apples 
through the ladies' car — I hadn't sold a thing so far 
— when I noticed two young fellows sitting near the 
rear end of the car. They were dandies, what might 
be called ' dudes,' but we called them ' stiffies ' in 
those days. They were young Southerners up North 
on a lark, as I found out afterwards. Behind them 
sat a negro valet who had a large iron-bound box 
beside him on the seat. Probably he was an old 
slave. He was dressed in as many colours as an 
English flunkey, and looked mighty fine. 

"As I passed the dudes one of them took the 
basket and threw the contents out of the window. 
Then he told the coloured man to give me a dollar. 
The man grinned, and turning to the box beside him, 
he opened it. It was really full of money and 
valuables. He took out a dollar and gave it to me. 
I grabbed it and walked up the car. I was still 
surprised. At the door I looked back at them, and 
everybody laughed at me for some reason or other — 
all except the young men, they never even smiled 
during the whole performance. 

" Well, I filled up my basket with prize packages 
and came back through the train. Nobody bought 
any of them. When I reached the Southerners, 
however, the same one said, ' Excuse me, sir,' 
grabbed the basket again, and sent the prize- 
packages after the pea-nuts. He handed me my 
basket and sat back without a smile, but everybody 
else laughed again. This time I said, ' Look here, 

4 



34 NEWSAGENT AND TELEGRAPHIST 

mister, do you know how much those were worth ? ' 
* No/ he said — ' how much ? ' * There were three 
dozen and four at ten cents each/ I replied, * not to 
mention the prizes in some of them.' 

" ' Oh ! ' he said. Then turning to the coloured 
man, ' Nicodemus, count how much the boy ought 
to have and give it to him.' The man opened his 
box and gave me four dollars, and again I went 
away with the empty basket, while the passengers 
laughed. Next I brought in some morning papers, 
and nobody bought those either. Somehow the 
passengers had caught the spirit of the thing, and 
as it cost them nothing they apparently did not 
wish to deprive the Southerners of their fun. I 
was watchful when I came to the young bloods 
this time, and I carried the papers so that they 
could grab them easily. Sure enough, the nearest 
one threw them out of the window after the other 
things. I sat on the edge of a seat and laughed 
myself. ' Settle with Nicodemus,' he said, and 
Nicodemus settled up. 

" Then I had an idea. I went into the baggage- 
car and got every paper I could find. I had a 
lot of that day's stock and over a hundred returns 
of the day before which I was going to turn in 
at the end of the run. The whole lot was so 
heavy that I could just manage to carry it on 
my shoulder. When I staggered into the ladies' 
car and called ' Paper ! ' in the usual drawl, the 
passengers fairly shrieked with laughter. I thought 
the Southerners would back down, but they never 
flinched. They both just grabbed those papers 
and hurled them out of the window by the armful. 
We could see them flying behind the train like 
great white birds — you know we had large blanket 



ECCENTRIC CUSTOMERS 35 

sheets then — and they spread themselves over the 
landscape in a way that must have startled the 
rural population of the district. I got over ten 
dollars for all my papers. 

" The dandy was game. * Look here, boy,' he 
said, when the passengers had seen the last of 
those papers floating around the curve, * have you 
anything else on board ? ' ' Nothing except my 
basket and my box,' I replied. ' Well, bring in 
those too.' The box was a big three by four in 
which we kept the goods — a great, clumsy affair. 
But I put the basket in the box and turned it 
over and over down the aisle of the car to where 
the fellows sat. They threw the basket out of the 
window, but the box was too big to go that way. 
So they ordered Nicodemus to throw it off the 
rear platform. I charged them three dollars for 
that box. When it had gone one of them turned 
to me and said : 

" ' How much money have you made to-day ? ' 
I counted up over twenty-five dollars which 
Nicodemus had given me. ' Now,' he said, ' you 
are sure you have nothing more to sell ? ' I 
would have brought in the smoking-car stove if 
it hadn't been hot. But I was compelled to say 
that there was really nothing more. 'Very well,' 
and then with a change of tone he turned to the 
negro and said, * Nicodemus, throw this boy out of 
the window.' The passengers yelled with laughter, but 
I got out of that car pretty quick, I can tell you." 

During these days young Edison had not as 
much time as he desired for investigating the 
mysteries of electricity. His work on the train 
occupied him from seven in the morning until 
nearly nine at night, and his father, having been 



36 NEWSAGENT AND TELEGRAPHIST 

brought up on the old maxim that early to bed 
and early to rise would confer health, wealth, and 
wisdom on those who followed the advice, insisted 
on his son retiring at 9.30. This was a very great 
grievance, and the boy frequently expostulated, but 
Mr. Edison was gifted with an adamantine will, 
and he declined to budge from the 9.30 rule. So 
Al had again to set his wits to work to break 
down this barrier to his progress as an electrical 
experimenter. How he accomplished this is best 
told in his own words. 

''While a newsboy on the railroad," he says, " I 
got very much interested in electricity, probably 
from visiting telegraph offices with a chum who 
had tastes similar to my own. We ran a telegraph 
line between our respective houses, supporting the 
wire on trees and insulating it by the necks of 
bottles. We learned how to ' send ' and ' take,' and 
got a lot of fun out of it when we were not on 
the run. But my spare time was limited, for just 
as soon as I commenced making experiments with 
the instruments each night I would hear my father's 
voice ordering me to bed. At that time what he 
said was law, and if I tried to sneak a few hours 
up in the workshop he would come in and take 
the light away. So I had to think of the best 
way to overcome his prejudice to late study. 

" Each evening I would come in with a bunch of 
papers that I had not sold, and my father would 
start in to read them, and I had to go to bed, 
while he sat up till midnight reading the news. 
But he never became so absorbed that he failed 
to hear 9.30 chime, though frequently I gave him 
long, interesting articles to read, hoping that it 
would take his mind off the time. But it was 



PRIMITIVE TELEGRAPHY 37 

no good ; as the half-hour approached his eye 
would wander towards the clock, and at the tick 
I would hear his voice yelling to me to go to 
bed, and off I went. But one day on the train 
my chum and I concocted a plan whereby we hoped 
to break down this foolish rule. That night I 
didn't bring any papers home, and when my father 
asked me for one I said, ' Dick's got them all. 
He took them to his house. His folks wanted 
them.' That took him back a bit, but I didn't 
say any more until I was going to bed, and then 
I made a suggestion. * Dick and I have a tele- 
graph line working between our rooms,* I said ; 
* maybe I could call him up and get the news by 
wire.' Well, my father was quite agreeable, though 
probably a little dubious about our ability, but I 
went to work, and everything turned out all right. 

" I called on Dick, and he sat at the other end of 
the wire with a paper in front of him sending the 
news, while I took it on slips of paper, handing them 
over to my father to read as fast as each item was 
finished. There I sat until after 1 1 o'clock, feeding 
my father the news in broken doses and getting a 
lot of amusement and telegraphic practice out of it. 
This went on every night for some time, until my 
father was quite persuaded that I could stay up late 
without serious harm. And then I began bringing 
papers home again and put my extra time allowance 
on my experiments." 

This hobby of rigging up telegraph lines between 
his home and those of his boy friends was a 
favourite one with Edison, and he was sending 
and receiving messages at all hours of the day and 
night to and from half a dozen houses. One of the 
operators, who lived within a hundred yards of the 



38 NEWSAGENT AND TELEGRAPHIST 

Edison home, could not receive very well, and would 
come out, climb on the fence, and yell across to know 
what message Al had been sending. This always 
angered Edison, for he seemed to take it as a 
reflection on his telegraph line. The work of con- 
structing workable wires between the various houses 
was not easy, and had it not been for Edison's 
perseverance the experiments would have been 
abandoned soon after they were started. At first 
the wires were run from tree to tree, but subsequently 
small poles were erected. This was a considerable 
advantage, and messages were dispatched and received 
with remarkable smoothness. 

One morning, however, Edison awoke to find his 
telegraph poles " down " and everything more or less 
in chaos. If a cyclone had struck the town the 
damage could not have been more complete, yet 
it was all due to nothing more terrible than a peace- 
loving but straying cow. The animal had wandered 
into the orchard during the night, knocked down one 
of the poles, and become so entangled in the wires 
that very soon she had the rest of the sticks lying 
useless. Her terror increased as she became the 
more hopelessly imprisoned in the coils, and it was 
not long before she proceeded to let the neighbours 
know some of her difficulties. Her mournful bellow- 
ing had the desired effect, and several people from 
the neighbouring houses rushed to her rescue, cut 
away the wires and liberated the terrified animal, but 
not until she had irretrievably damaged the delicate 
instruments which had been adjusted at the cost 
of so much labour. The wires were never re-strung, 
for soon after Edison obtained a position where he 
was able to practise as a telegraph operator all 
he wanted without having to erect lines. 



CHAPTER IV 

IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT 

IT was in 1862, when Edison was fifteen years of 
age, that an event occurred which considerably 
stimulated his interest in telegraphy. While follow- 
ing his occupation as " candy-butcher " he dropped 
off the train one day at Mt. Clemens — the very 
station where he and his instruments had been so 
ignominiously ejected from the baggage-car by the 
incensed Stevenson a few months previously — to 
have a chat with the agent there, who was a par- 
ticular friend of his. This man, J. U. Mackenzie, 
was a quiet, sympathetic, sensible individual, and 
between the two a friendship had formed which was 
broken only by the death of Mackenzie some years 
ago. He was telegraph operator as well as agent, 
and it was from him that Edison so often received 
items of news which came over the wire and which 
he published in his paper. 

On the day referred to Edison and his friend were 
standing on the platform chatting over the events of 
the day when the latter's baby son ran out of the 
office and on to the track. Mackenzie did not 
observe him, but Edison, following the boy's pro- 
gress, was dismayed to see him take up a position 

between the metals on which a freight train was 

39 



40 IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT 

running at an express clip. With a hasty word to 
Mackenzie, Edison dashed across the track and 
succeeded in pulling the child away just as the train 
tore by. He brought the boy back to his father, and 
the poor man was so overcome that he could only 
gasp out incoherent words of thankfulness and grati- 
tude. Al, always cool, hastily bade the agent good- 
bye and did not see him again for some days. 

The next time they met Mackenzie, who had been 
worrying his brains as to the best way of rewarding 
the lad who had really risked his life to save that of 
his child, offered to teach him how to become a tele- 
graph operator. The offer was gladly accepted, and 
for three months, four days a week, after he had 
finished his work on the train, Edison dropped off 
at Mt. Clemens and received lessons from Mackenzie 
in the mysteries of telegraphy. At the end of that 
period he knew so much about telegraphic instru- 
ments, and had become so expert an operator, that 
his teacher informed him that he might now graduate. 

" By this time," said Mackenzie in after years, " he 
knew as much about telegraphy as I did, and on my 
suggestion he applied for a position as night operator 
at Port Huron Station. He obtained it, and mighty 
proud he was when he informed me that his salary 
had been fixed at twenty-five dollars a month." 

His duties were not very exhausting, for he had 
but to record the passing of trains , but Edison, unlike 
the majority of night operators, could seldom be 
persuaded to sleep during the day, and consequently 
he went on duty each night feeling drowsy and tired. 
He had, of course, resigned his position on the train, 
but it is a question whether he did not work just 
as hard in his workshop at home when he should 
have been resting. He was constantly thinking of 



EDISON SLEEPS ON DUTY 41 

and evolving new schemes, and, as a matter of fact, his 
mind was not always on his work. His telegraphic 
reports were meagre in the extreme, and though the 
train dispatcher was a particular friend of his — like 
almost every one who came in contact with him — 
and had a real affection for the boy, he was always 
threatening to report him for inattention to duty. 

Edison did not wish to give up his experimenting 
during the day, but it was absolutely necessary that 
he should obtain sleep somehow, so after consulting 
the railroad timetable with considerable care he 
purchased a clock furnished with a particularly 
aggressive alarm, carried it to his office one night, 
and set it to go off five minutes before the first train 
was scheduled to pass. Then he settled himself 
comfortably and proceeded to enjoy a nap. Punctual 
to the minute the clock roused him, when he would 
send his message, set the clock for the next train, 
and go to sleep again. 

The plan worked excellently so long as the trains 
were on time, but — well, sometimes they were not, 
and then there was more trouble. The dispatcher 
began to lose patience. He had a serious talk with 
Edison, and in very solemn tones informed him that 
the next time he slept on duty he would be reported 
to the company. Edison, very contrite, assured him 
that it should not happen again, and for a couple of 
nights his messages were all that could be desired. 
But it was impossible to keep the thing up long, for 
his experiments during the day still continued, and 
sleep he must have. 

His brain soon became busy again. The train 
dispatcher, distrustful of his promises and still fear- 
ing that he might drop off to sleep any moment 
while on duty, conceived a plan whereby he thought 



42 IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT 

to guarantee Edison's remaining wakeful throughout 
the night. On his own initiative he ordered the 
sleepy operator to signal to him the letter " A " in 
the Morse alphabet every half-hour. Edison ex- 
pressed the greatest delight at the plan and cheerfully 
agreed to fall in with the train dispatcher's wishes. 
The first night he diligently sent " A " over the wire 
every thirty minutes, but towards morning he felt so 
sleepy and worn out that he clearly saw that some 
means must be contrived whereby he might obtain 
sleep between signals. 

The following day he experimented long but 
successfully in his workshop at home, and that 
evening when he reported for duty there was a bland 
expression on his countenance which might have 
revealed to the observant the fact that he had solved 
the difficulty. He carried a small box in his hand, 
and when he was alone in his office he opened this 
and took out various articles usually to be found in 
the kit of a line repairer, including some coils of wire. 
Then he spent half an hour or so putting the things 
together, and the result was an interesting-looking 
instrument which he connected by wire to the tele- 
graph and the clock. Then he took a seat and 
waited. 

This is what happened. Promptly at the half-hour 
a little wooden lever fell, sending an excellent imita- 
tion of the Morse " A " to the telegraph key, and 
immediately afterwards another lever closed the 
circuit. Edison was jubilant. He watched the in- 
strument for another half-hour and when it again 
fulfilled its duty he gave a sigh of relief and went 
to sleep. 

Every night the signal was faithfully flashed each 
half-hour and the train dispatcher's confidence in 



THE TRAIN DESPATCHER'S ANXIETY 43 

Edison was becoming re-established, when one of 
those circumstances over which the most ingenious 
has no control occurred and revealed the scheme in 
all its deceptions. The dispatcher happened on his 
rounds one night to be only one station away from 
Edison, and after getting the usual signal he thought 
he would call up the operator and have a chat with 
him. So he opened the key, and on getting no reply 
became alarmed. He called for fifteen minutes, and 
then, feeling sure that something terrible had occurred, 
he rode to the next station on a hand-car. 

Looking through the office window in considerable 
anxiety — for he half expected to find the operator 
murdered — he was astounded to see Edison quietly 
sleeping in a corner of the room, his steady breathing 
indicating the profoundness of his slumbers. He 
was about to angrily arouse him when his attention 
was attracted to a curious bit of mechanism which 
stood on the table near the telegraph instrument, and 
as it was close upon the half-hour the dispatcher 
decided to wait and see what would happen. He 
expected something to occur which would arouse the 
sleeper, and was therefore the more astonished when 
Edison still remained locked in slumber as the hands 
of the clock pointed to the time when the pre- 
arranged signal should be sent. But his astonish- 
ment was increased a hundredfold when he dis- 
covered that the queer bit of mechanism he had 
noticed performed the duty for him. Before his very 
eyes — he afterwards declared that he would not have 
believed it otherwise — the instrument "got busy," 
and while one lever threw open the key the other 
sent the signal over the wire. Then the astonished 
train dispatcher also " got busy," and arousing Edison 
with no gentle hands declared in forcible language 



44 IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT 

that he was done with him, and the same day the 
Port Huron operator was looking for another job. 

But in spite of his inattention to duty Edison had 
given evidence over and over again of his wonderful 
skill and quickness in grappling with a difficulty, and 
many stories illustrative of this trait in his character 
are told in Port Huron to-day. On one occasion, for 
instance, there was an interruption in the line to 
Detroit, and the day operator asked Edison to look 
out and try and ascertain where the trouble was. 
The boy immediately laid a wire from his father's 
house and strung it along the railway fence. Thence 
he tumbled down the bank by the swing bridge and 
fastened a wire to one end of the cable, which, as he 
suspected, had been parted by a passing vessel. 
Then he went back and was telling the day operator 
what he had done, when George Christie, a line re- 
pairer, came along, and, overhearing the conversation, 
dropped his kit and wanted to lick Edison for 
interfering with his work. But the day operators 
got betweeen them and prevented a fight and Edison 
escaped. Christie was finally persuaded that the boy 
he was desirous of clubbing had really performed a 
far-sighted and commendable feat. 

From Port Huron Edison went to Sarnia, where 
he remained some months as telegraph operator at 
the railroad station. And here again he got into a 
scrape which might have landed him in the State 
prison. While experimenting, he allowed a train to 
pass by his station when he should have stopped it, 
as there was another train immediately ahead. The 
instant it had flashed by, Edison realised the serious- 
ness of the affair, and, in a fever, ran down the line, 
shouting as he went, and fervently praying that he 
might be in time to avert an accident. This, of 



EDISON RETURNS TO PORT HURON 45 

course, was an insane hope, and a terrible calamity 
would have occurred had not the engine-drivers heard 
each other's whistles in time to realise their danger 
and thus prevent a rear-end collision. Edison was so 
relieved at the outcom.e of his carelessness that when 
he was summoned before the manager of the line he 
was almost light-hearted. But when he learned that 
there was a probability of his being prosecuted for his 
neglect of duty, he decided to take the matter into 
his own hands, and while the Board were consulting 
as to his fate, he packed his belongings and returned 
to Port Huron. 

Here he obtained a position in the Western Union 
Office, for he was now a rapid operator, and his skill 
with the key was beginning to be recognised. But 
an unfortunate incident occurred a few months later 
which decided him to throw up his post and shake 
the dust of Port Huron from his feet. It appears 
that the leading local daily being extremely anxious 
to obtain a report of the Presidential message to 
Congress — which was hourly expected — offered the 
agent of the Western Union sixty dollars if he would 
secure it. The agent closed with the bargain, and 
knowing that Edison was the most skilled operator 
in his employ promised him a third of the sum as 
a bonus if he would receive the message. Edison 
gladly agreed, and took the message, but when he 
asked for his twenty dollars he was calmly assured 
by his chief that he did not intend to pay either the 
bonus promised or any additional sum for extra 
work. Edison, astounded at the man's barefaced 
dishonesty, but recognising that he had no redress — 
the agent's word would, he knew, have greater weight 
than his — declined to serve any longer under him and 
went to consult his friend Mackenzie. Mackenzie, 



46 IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT 

full of sympathy, wanted Edison to sue the agent, but, 
quickly coming to the conclusion that the game was 
hardly worth the candle, advised him instead to apply 
for the post of night operator on the railroad at 
Stratford, Canada, which was then vacant. Edison 
took his friend's advice, sent in his application, and 
was at once given the position at the 'modest re- 
muneration of twenty-five dollars a month. 

At Stratford he remained a few weeks only, for he 
saw there was little opportunity of advancement and 
the pay was scarcely sufficient to keep him in food 
and lodging. On the advice of a friend, therefore, he 
took train to Indianapolis, where he believed he would 
stand a fair chance of obtaining a good position. 
And here it may be remarked that it is a somewhat 
curious fact that in all his ups and downs during the 
early part of his life it never seemed to occur to 
Edison to try any profession other than that of a 
telegrapher. He was a born operator and at that 
time no other work had any attractions for him. 

Edison arrived in Indianapolis before he was 
eighteen years of age, and in a private account- 
book of the agent of the Western Union in that 
city, there appears, entered monthly during the 
latter part of 1864 and the first part of 1865, the 
name " T. A. Edison." The first time it appears 
it is inscribed in rather bold characters, but in 
every other instance the signature is small and 
neat and of that peculiarity of form which he culti- 
vated for the purposes of rapid penmanship. Edison 
went to live in Indianapolis about the ist of Novem- 
ber, 1864, and his office records show that at the end 
of that month he drew a full month's salary. 

At that time the Superintendent of the Western 
Union Company in Indianapolis was John F. Wallick. 





2 ^ 



IN INDIANAPOLIS 47 

This gentleman used to say that he distinctly remem- 
bered his first meeting with Edison. He was walking 
on one of the down-town streets, when a smooth- 
faced, boyish-looking young man stopped him. The 
young man was Edison. The Superintendent recol- 
lects nothing of his appearance to distinguish him 
from other young men, except, perhaps, a face some- 
what more frank than the ordinary, and a manner that 
was rather hesitating. He had evidently learned 
before who Mr. Wallick was, for he stopped him and 
asked for a position. Mr. Wallick replied in the 
conventional way : 

" Come around to-morrow and I will see what I 
can do for you." 

The next day, bright and early, young Edison 
walked into the Superintendent's office. Mr. Wallick 
bade him sit down and asked him some questions 
which were evidently satisfactorily answered, and 
he was at once given a position. He was assigned 
to the Union Station, his duties being of ordinary 
responsibility and relating to the reception of 
messages as well as the flagging of trains. During 
the time he was in Indianapolis he drew seventy-five 
dollars a month, which was about the regulation 
salary paid in those days. While he was at the 
station Mr. Wallick saw very little of him, but one 
day while sitting in his office Edison entered. The 
Superintendent asked him what he wanted, and he 
replied eagerly : 

" I just came to ask if you would give me some old 
instruments there are about the office." 

The Superintendent told him that he was welcome 
to any that he could find if they were of use to him, 
and he went away highly pleased. A day or two 
after Mr. Wallick went down to the station to take a 



48 IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT 

train. He stepped into the operator's room and there 
on a big rough board were spread out the instruments 
he had given to Edison. He did not think much of 
the circumstance at the time, but a few years later, 
when Edison was in the East, and the Superintendent 
saw notices of his discoveries and inventions, the 
thought occurred to him that the foundation, perhaps, 
for some of them might have been laid in Indiana- 
polis. Mr. Wallick had no personal remembrance of 
the inventor after the incident at the depot, but 
twenty years later Edison, then a famous man, went 
back to Indianapolis on a holiday, hunted up Mr. 
Wallick, and the two men visited together the scenes 
of the boy-operator's labours at the Union Station. 



CHAPTER V 

HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

EDISON remained in Indianapolis until February 
1865, when he resigned his position and com- 
menced a wandering life which carried him from State 
to State and from city to city. During this nomadic 
existence he arrived in Cincinatti, where he remained 
for several months as a telegraph operator, earning a 
fair salary, but devoting so much of it to the purchase 
of books and electrical instruments, that little was left 
to provide him with even the necessaries of life. He 
continued to combine his experimental work with 
hard reading, and through this devotion to literature 
he narrowly escaped death at the hands of an over- 
zealous policeman. Edison himself has often told 
the story of how he was shot at as a supposed thief, 
and the incident is worth recalling. It was all due, 
so he says, to his appreciation of a well-known 
magazine. 

" While a telegraph operator in Cincinnati," he 
says, " I was just as great a reader as in the old days, 
and my salary being small, I used to wander among 
the auction-rooms and pick up a bargain whenever I 
got the chance. One day there was put up to the 
highest bidder a stack of North American Reviews, 
and, after some desultory offers, I secured the lot for 
two dollars. I carried the parcel — which was heavy 

5 49 



50 HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

enough to put on a truck — to the telegraph office, 
arriving there just in time to report. At 3 a.m. I was 
free, and shouldering my package, I went down the 
dark street at a pretty lively pace, for I was not only 
anxious to get rid of my burden, but was also very 
desirous to start in reading the books as soon as 
possible. 

" Presently I heard a pistol shot behind me and 
something whizzed past my ear, nearly grazing it, in 
fact. As I turned, a breathless policeman came up 
and ordered me in tones I didn't fail to hear that 
time to drop my parcel. Evidently hurrying along 
the dark alley-way with my bundle I did look rather 
a suspicious character, and the policeman had con- 
cluded that I was decamping with property not 
my own. I stopped and opened my package. The 
policeman looked disgusted. ' Why didn't you halt 
when I told you ? ' he said. ' If I'd been a better shot 
you might have got killed.' He apologised afterwards 
when I explained to him that it was owing to my 
deafness that I didn't obey his commands." 

In connection with his telegraphic days in Cin- 
cinnati, Edison tells a story in support of his theory 
that there is no work so mechanical as that of a 
telegraph operator. " One night," he says, " I noticed 
an immense crowd gathering in the street outside a 
newspaper office. I called the attention of the other 
operators to the crowd and we sent a messenger boy 
out to find the cause of the excitement. He returned 
in a few minutes and shouted * Lincoln's shot ! ' 
Instinctively the operators looked from one face to 
the other to see which man had received the news. 
All the faces were blank and every man said he had 
not taken a word about the shooting. ' Look over 
your files,' said the boss to the man handling the 



HE ARRIVES IN MEMPHIS 51 

press stuff. For a few minutes we waited in suspense, 
and then the man held up a sheet of paper contain- 
ing a short account of the shooting of the President. 
The operator had worked so mechanically that he 
had handled the news without the slightest knowledge 
of its significance." ^ 

From Cincinnati, Edison journeyed to Memphis 
and immediately started for the Western Union 
Office after work. His first appearance there has 
been described by a writer who claims to have been 
an operator with him in his Tennessee days, and the 
account is so humorous that I cannot refrain from 
quoting it. 

" He came walking into the office one morning," 
says this unknown author, " looking like a veritable 
hay- seed. He wore a hickory shirt, a pair of butter- 
nut pants tucked into the tops of boots a size too 
large and guiltless of blacking. ' Where's the boss ? * 
was his query, as he glanced around the office. No 
one replied at once and he repeated the question. 
The manager asked what he could do for him, and 
the future great one proceeded to strike him for a job. 
Business was rushing and the office was two men 
short, so almost any kind of a lightning slinger was 
welcome. He was assigned to a desk and a fusilade 
of winks went the rounds of the room, for the new 
arrival had been put on the St. Louis wire, the 
hardest in the office. At the end of the line was an 
operator who was chain lightning and knew it. 

" Edison had hardly got seated before St. Louis 
called. The new-comer responded, and St. Louis 
started on a long report, which he pumped in like a 
house afire. Edison threw his leg over the arm of 
the chair, leisurely transferred a wad of spruce gum 

* Dickson's " Edison." 



52 HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

from his pocket to his mouth, took up a pen, ex- 
amined it critically, and started in about fifty words 
behind. He didn't stay there long though. St. 
Louis let out another link of speed and still another, 
and the instrument on Edison's table hummed like an 
old-style Singer sewing-machine. Every man in the 
office left his desk and gathered around the Jay to see 
what he was doing with that electric cyclone. 

" Well, sir, he was right on the word and taking it 
down in the prettiest copper-plate hand you ever saw, 
even crossing his * t's ' and dotting his ' i's,' and punc- 
tuating with as much care as a man editing telegraph 
for rat printers. St. Louis got tired by and by and 
began to slow down. Then Edison opened the key 
and said : 

" * Hello, there ! when are you going to get a hustle 
on ? This is no primer class.' 

" Well, sir," said the gentleman in conclusion, " that 
broke St. Louis all up. He had been raw-hiding 
Memphis for a long time, and we were terribly sore, 
and to have a man in our office who could walk all 
over him made us feel like a man whose horse had 
won the Derby. I saw the Wizard not long ago. 
He doesn't wear a hickory shirt or put his pants in 
his boots, but he is very far from being a dude yet." 

This account is, of course, exaggerated, and the 
narrator has taken the liberty of turning the incident 
into one of a humorous nature, though the main facts 
are correct. Edison at one time in his career was the 
fastest operator in the employ of the Western Union, 
and a constant source of astonishment to every one, 
from the manager down, was the way in which he 
would take the swiftest messages with ease almost 
amounting to indifference. His remarkably clear 
handwriting might be described as one of his first 



AGAIN LOSES HIS POSITION 53 

inventions, for he originated it expressly for the 
purpose of taking quick reports. He could, with no 
apparent effort, write forty-five words a minute, suffi- 
cient to take down messages from the speediest 
senders, and had it been necessary might have in- 
creased his capacity to fifty and fifty-five words, and 
with no decrease in neatness and legibility. As a 
sender he was no less remarkable, and there were 
few who could take his messages when Edison felt 
in good condition and his blood was up. 

But Memphis did not enjoy the society of their 
champion operator for long. Again he lost his job, 
this time, according to Alexander Knapp, a fellow- 
worker, through an exuberance of spirits which 
scandalised the Memphis manager, a gentleman of 
the name of Baker. Knapp and Edison were firm 
friends and would occasionally visit the theatres and 
other places of amusement together. One evening 
they went to the Zoo, a variety theatre on Washing- 
ton Street, where they saw a performance of the 
"can-can" dance, which had just then been intro- 
duced to Memphis audiences. Both operators were 
delighted with the novel performance, and on reach- 
ing the office to begin the night's work they decided 
that the time and the place were convenient for a 
trial of the new dance. For the benefit of their co- 
workers they began to give the " can-can " with so 
much energy that several of the tables were knocked 
over and some of the instruments put out of business. 
In the midst of this scene Mr. Baker arrived, 
and, without asking for any explanation, he took 
Edison by one ear and Knapp by the other, led 
them to the door of the office, and turned them loose 
into the street, telling them that they might continue 
their performance there if they liked. Neither Edison 



54 HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

nor Knapp returned to explain matters, but imme- 
diately sought fresh fields for the exercise of their 
apparently unappreciated talents. Subsequently 
Knapp eschewed telegraphy, and afterwards became 
a very prominent man in railroad circles. 

Edison decided to try Boston. He had a friend 
there named Milton Adams, and to him he wrote, 
begging him as a favour to find him a job. Adams 
was also a telegrapher, and connected with the 
Western Union office there, and he mentioned the 
matter to G. F. Milliken, the manager, showing him 
Edison's application. The curious handwriting im- 
mediately attracted Mr. Milliken's attention, and his 
interest being aroused, he inquired if the operator 
took messages from the line and put them down in 
that shape. Adams replied : " Yes, and there is no 
one who can stick him," whereupon Milliken told him 
to write to his friend, and tell him to call upon him, 
and he would see what could be done. Edison took 
train for Boston immediately after the receipt of 
Adams's hopeful letter, and a five minutes' interview 
sufficed for Milliken to size the young man up and 
give him a position. On entering the office his 
retiring manner and eccentricities of dress — he was 
just as untidy as ever — created some amusement, but 
he soon showed such remarkable gifts as an operator 
— no one could touch him even in Boston — that 
amusement turned to admiration, and he was looked 
upon with respect and even veneration. 

Edison had no sooner settled in his new position 
than he opened a small workshop for the perfecting 
of many ideas which were germinating in his busy 
brain, and it was while here that he took out his first 
patent — perhaps the most unfortunate of the many 
hundreds with which his name is associated. This 



AN UxNFORTUNATE INVENTION 55 

was a vote-recording machine, comprising a system 
whereby each member of a legislative body could, by 
moving a switch on his desk to right or left, register 
his name on a sheet of paper under the " ayes " or 
" noes." The paper was chemically prepared, and 
when the circuit was closed an iron roller passed over 
the paper, under which was the type signifying the 
member's name. The current passing through the 
chemically prepared paper caused its discoloration 
wherever the type came in contact with it, and the 
name was accordingly printed on the paper. At the 
same time the vote was counted by a dial indicator 
which was operated by the same current. 

This ingenious instrument worked perfectly, and 
the young inventor was in high feather over his 
wonderfully simple yet adequate system for " puri- 
fying " the ballot. He had been used to handling 
press reports, and the time taken in counting votes 
as well as the ease with which they could be " mani- 
pulated " had suggested to him the idea for the 
invention. So he travelled to Washington, and after 
some little delay succeeded in exhibiting his instru- 
ment to the Chairman of Committees, who, after 
examining the machine very carefully, said : " Young 
man, it works all right and couldn't be better. With 
an instrument like that it would be difficult to 
monkey with the vote if you wanted to. But it 
won't do. In fact, it's the last thing on earth that we 
want here. Filibustering and delay in the counting 
of the votes are often the only means we have for 
defeating bad legislation. So, though I admire your 
genius and the spirit which prompted you to invent 
so excellent a machine, we shan't require it here. 
Take the thing away." 

Whereupon Edison mournfully shouldered his 



56 HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

vote-recorder and left the committee-room. " Of 
course I was very sorry," said Edison afterwards, 
" for I had banked on that machine bringing me in 
money. But it was a lesson to me. There and then 
I made a vow that I would never invent anything 
which was not wanted, or which was not necessary 
to the community at large. And so far I believe I 
have kept that vow." 

A story which will stick to Edison has reference 
to the way in which he rid the office of cock- 
roaches, and the inventor always smiles when the 
incident crops up — as it usually does — if in con- 
versation with an interviewer interested in his early 
days. Says an operator who worked with him 
in Boston : " We were terribly bothered and dis- 
gusted by the vast army of cockroaches that each 
night formed an entire square, with the operators' 
lunches on the inside. These lunches were kept on 
an unused table, and promptly at half-past six each 
night the cockroach legions would march upon the 
old table, ascend the four legs that upheld it, and 
make a raid on sandwiches, apple-pie, and other 
eatables. One night while Edison v/as waiting for 
Washington to start the newspaper specials he 
conceived a plan to annihilate the entire cockroach 
horde. 

" He said nothing, but when he reported for duty 
the next night he was supplied with a quantity of tin- 
foil and four or five yards of fine wire. Unrolling the 
tin-foil and cutting two narrow strips from the long 
sheet, he stretched them around the table, taking care 
to keep them as near together as possible without 
touching, and fastening them into position with some 
very small tacks. Then he connected the ribbons and 
foil with two heavy batteries and awaited the result. 



ELECTROCUTING COCKROACHES 57 

" We were all deeply interested and little work was 
done until the advance guard of the cockroach army- 
put in an appearance. Now to complete the circuit 
and set this unique little engine of death in operation 
it needed but a single cockroach to cross the dead 
line. One big fellow came up the post at the south- 
east corner of the room and stopped for a moment. 
Then he brushed his nose with his forelegs and 
started. He reached the first ribbon in safety, but as 
soon as his fore-creepers struck the opposite or 
parallel ribbon over he went as dead as a free mes- 
sage. From that time until after lunch the check 
boys were kept busy brushing the dead insects to the 
floor. At midnight the cordon of defunct beetles 
around the table looked like a square made out of an 
old rope." 

While in Boston, Adams was Edison's constant 
companion, and the two lived and worked together 
more like brothers than friends. They would wander 
among the old second-hand book stores and pick up 
bargains which Edison would devour when he should 
have been resting. " One day," says Adams in Dick- 
son's " Edison," " he bought the whole of Faraday's 
works on electricity, brought them home at four 
o'clock in the morning, and read steadily until I 
arose, when we made for Hanover Street, about a 
mile distant (where we took our meals) to secure 
breakfast. Edison's brain was on fire with what he 
had read, and he suddenly remarked to me: "Adams, 
I have got so much to do and life is so short that 
I am going to hustle," and with that he started on 
a run for breakfast. 

Captain H. M. Anderson, of Kansas City, was an 
operator with Edison at this time, and often met the 
inventor at his little workshop in Wilson Street. 



58 HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

Anderson was on day duty, but Edison had a night 
shift. "Where he slept," says Captain Anderson, 
" I don't know, for he worked most of the day down 
in that little machine shop. He never was in time 
to go on duty. He would get to working out some 
idea, and would not think about his job until half an 
hour after time to report. Often he got called over 
the coals by the manager, but though he always 
expressed sorrow he never repented, or if he did, he 
never reformed. He made some gun-cotton once 
from a formula of his own. He had been working for 
weeks on something, but we never ventured to ask 
him what it was. He would not have told us if we 
had. One day I heard him say, ' I don't believe it's 
any good,' and he laid something in a metal case and 
put it on the mantel, back of the stove. It lay there 
for weeks until they started a fire, and then there was 
an explosion which blew the front of the stove out. 
We all rushed from the room, Edison leading the 
bunch, and all he said was : ' Well, it was good after 
all.' So I suppose the cause of the explosion was 
his home-made gun-cotton. 

" In the cloak-room, where the operators hung up 
their hats and coats, there was a large tank filled with 
ice-water for drinking. Opposite it hung a tin dipper 
on a nail in the wall. Edison, in one of his merry 
moods, connected this nail with a wire at the other 
end of which were 190 cells of Fuller battery. He 
then placed a sign below the dipper requesting all to 
* Please return this dipper.' His request was heeded. 
The dipper was never taken down but there were a 
dozen or more wrenched arms in the office in less 
than an hour. 

" I remember once when Edison bought a new suit 
of clothes. It was not often he spent much money on 



EDISOxN TELLS A STORY 59 

these luxuries, but that time he got a thirty-dollar 
suit. The next Sunday he was experimenting in his 
workshop with a bottle of sulphuric acid. Suddenly 
the bottle exploded and the new suit was ruined. 
* What I get for putting so much money in a suit ! ' 
was Edison's only comment." 

Edison himself, through the medium of Mr. 
W. K. L. Dickson, tells a story of his Boston days 
which I have permission to quote here. It is related 
at the expense of his friend Adams, who, much to his 
disgust, was the principal in the amusing incident. 
" One day," says the inventor, " Milton and I were 
passing along Tremont Row when we noticed a crowd 
collected in front of two dry-goods stores and stopped 
to see what was the matter. It happened that these 
were rival establishments and that each had received 
a consignment of stockings which they were eager to 
dispose of. Their methods were very entertaining. 
One would put out a sign stating that this vast 
commercial emporium had five thousand pairs of 
stockings to dispose of at the paralysing price of 
twelve cents a pair, an announcement which 
wound up with : ' No connection with the firm 
next door.' In a moment the rival firm would follow 
suit, underbidding the other by one cent at a time, 
until the price was actually reduced to one cent for 
five pairs of stockings. 

"The crowd had been steadily increasing all the 
time, contenting itself with jeering and making 
merry, but showing no avidity to take advantage of 
these tempting bargains. Milton and I had been 
agog, however, for some time and he now broke out 
with : ' Say, Edison, I can stand this no longer — give 
me a cent,' and on being supplied with this handsome 
financial basis he boldly entered the store, which was 



6o HIS FIRST WORKSHOP 

filled with lady clerks. Throwing down the cent, he 
demanded five pairs of stockings, while the crowd 
excitedly awaited the result. The young lady attend- 
ant surveyed the customer with magnificent disdain 
and handed him five pairs of baby stockings. ' Oh,' 
said my friend, in much discomfiture, ' I can't use 
these.' 'Can't help it, young man,' was the curt reply; 
*we don't permit selections at that price.' The crowd 
roared and the commercial struggle soon afterwards 
ended." 

Many stories have been written regarding Edison's 
first lecture, and it is generally supposed that he was 
so nervous when he found himself in front of his 
audience that all he could blurt out was : " Ladies 
and Gentlemen, — Mr. Adams will now lecture on 
electricity while I illustrate his remarks with the 
lantern." This is a little exaggeration of what 
actually happened. His first lecture, which took 
place while he was in Boston, was a success, though 
at the commencement he certainly was greatly em- 
barrassed, as was also his partner, Mr. Milton Adams. 
His name as a scientist had become a well-known 
one by this time in Boston, and he bore so excellent 
a character that he was selected by a fashionable 
ladies' academy to lecture on telegraphy. 

" Immersed in other projects," says Mr. Dickson, 
"he not only neglected to inquire into the sex of 
his audience but totally overlooked the appointment, 
and when summoned by his friend Mr. Adams 
was discovered on the top of a house performing 
certain acrobatic feats connected with the erection 
of a telegraph wire. Curiously enough, Adams 
shared his colleague's ignorance in regard to the 
expected ordeal and possessed, like Edison, with 
the belief that the audience would be composed of 



HIS FIRST LECTURE 6i 

boys, thought it unnecessary, in view of the late 
hour, to devote any time to personal adornment. 

" Unsuspiciously they hurried through the streets 
and plunged into the scientific arena, where, to their 
horror and amazement, they found themselves con- 
fronted, not by a horde of undisciplined boys, but 
by an assembly of beautifully attired young ladies. 
Confusion descended upon them, their tongues clove 
to the roofs of their mouths, and the upturned sea of 
quizzical faces before them loomed faintly through 
a crimson maze. At last, Edison, possessed of the 
courage of despair, and seeing that Adams was 
absolutely hors de combat, plunged into an ex- 
position of his subject and succeeded, in spite of 
certain catching sensations at the back of the 
throat, in conveying to the fair scientists a brief, 
pleasant, and lucid view of the subject. This diffi- 
dence, perhaps, served Edison's cause better than 
a bumptious and self-satisfied glibness would have 
done. From that day the sweet girl graduates made 
a point of recognising Edison in public and be- 
stowed upon him such smiles as made him a sub- 
ject of envious admiration among his less favoured 
associates." 



CHAPTER VI 

EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 

THROUGH all his wanderings Edison never lost 
sight of the one great object which he had in 
view, viz., to be a successful inventor, and during the 
time that he was working in the different offices of 
the Western Union his mind was busy with schemes 
connected with telegraphy or which had electricity 
as a basis. He worked alone and no one shared his 
confidences. Just as he is to-day, he never talked of 
his plans or boasted about what he was going to 
accomplish. Modesty and retirement were born 
with him and have stuck to him now for sixty 
years. It is a question whether his closest friend 
knew what he had in mind when tinkering with 
those sets of telegraph instruments and electrical 
apparatus on which he spent every cent of his hard- 
earned money. Certainly he confided to no one the 
principle of any invention prior to its being perfected, 
and, in fact, very seldom spoke of his own work. 
When he became famous, of course, it was different, 
but even then he rigidly forbore to make any 
statement regarding an invention which was still in 
the making. He never talks about a device until it 
is perfected, and then any one is quite at liberty to 

find out anything about it that they have a mind to. 

62 



THE LAW GOLD INDICATOR 63 

Edison left Boston soon after patenting his vote- 
recorder and went to New York. He had no desire 
to continue his career as a telegraph operator, for 
it interfered too much with his work as an experi- 
menter. What he aimed at was to have a laboratory 
of his own, where he could carry out those ideas 
which were gathering so thickly in his brain. But 
he had no money, and without capital it was im- 
possible for him to make headway as an inventor. 
He arrived in New York with scarcely sufficient cash 
to rent a respectable lodging — all had gone either in 
books or apparatus. 

Walking along Lower Broadway one morning, 
soon after his arrival, and wondering whether the 
time would ever come when he would be able to 
put his schemes to a practical test, he turned into 
Wall Street and entered the head office of the Law 
Gold Indicator. These indicators, or "tickers," were 
distributed among five or six hundred brokerage 
offices and were regarded as rather wonderful instru- 
ments, though occasionally they went wrong and 
then a messenger from each subscriber would be 
sent down post haste to the head office to inquire 
what the trouble was and when the machines would 
be working again. The memorable morning Edison 
happened to look in, for the express purpose of 
discovering whether there was any job in his par- 
ticular line going begging, the indicators had struck 
work and messengers from all parts of the city were 
clamouring to know what was wrong. Excitement 
ran high, for gold was dear and moments were 
precious. 

Mr. Law was in the office, together with a 
small army of workmen, but no one seemed capable 
of locating the trouble. Then Edison, who was 



64 EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 

standing by and seemed mildly interested in the 
commotion, remarked that he thought he could put 
things to rights, and Mr. Law told him to go ahead 
and see what he could do. Whereupon the young 
man quietly but deliberately removed a loose contact 
spring which had fallen between the wheels and 
immediately the instruments worked as chirpily as 
before. The repairers looked foolish and Mr. Law 
requested Edison to step into his office. After 
asking him a few questions, Mr. Law offered him 
the position of manager of the service at a salary 
of three hundred dollars a month. Edison says he 
nearly fainted when told what his remuneration was 
to be, but somehow he managed to keep a straight 
face and accepted the position with becoming 
gravity. 

Now that he had an assured income of thirty-six 
hundred dollars a year, Edison immediately opened 
a workshop " down town," and every moment that 
he could spare was devoted to his beloved experi- 
menting. His telegraph and electrical instruments 
were set out, bottles of chemicals lined the shelves, 
batteries were purchased, and soon the little shop 
really did begin to have the appearance of a bond-fide 
laboratory. Here Edison would work until the " small 
hours " and sometimes right through the night, for 
from his earliest years he seems to have been able 
to thrive on the minimum amount of sleep. He 
was busy on the duplex telegraph, but for a time he 
put this aside to see what he could do with the gold 
and stock ticker. It did not take him long to 
discover that in its then condition it was little better 
than useless ; for in spite of his being manager, 
the system broke down again and again, causing 
endless trouble to the subscribers. 



THE FIRST CHEQUE 65 

So he determined to improve the instrument and 
convert it into a reliable and trustworthy " ticker." 
As assistant he took into his workshop a man of the 
name of Callahan, a clever mechanic, and the two 
worked early and late to perfect the system. They 
finally succeeded in evolving many important im- 
provements, and the President of the Company, 
General Marshall Lefferts, sent for Edison and asked 
him what he wanted for these. The inventor, modest 
in his demands, was about to mention five thousand 
dollars when good sense came to his aid, and he replied 
that he would rather the President made him an offer. 
Thereupon this gentleman mentioned forty thousand 
dollars. Edison opened his mouth to give voice to 
the astonishment he felt at the magnitude of the sum, 
when General Lefferts, misinterpreting his expression, 
added that it was as much as he cared to give and 
so like a wise man Edison quietly accepted the 
handsome sum. 

After a few preliminaries the inventor was subse- 
quently handed a cheque for the amount agreed 
upon ; and as this was the first piece of paper of the 
kind which had ever come into his possession, he 
was in some perplexity as to what he was to do with 
it. Finally, he went to the bank and tried to cash it, 
but the paying-teller, knowing nothing of Edison, 
declined to pay out so large a sum until he had been 
" identified." Edison, firmly convinced that he had 
been " done," was moodily leaving the bank when 
he met an acquaintance, a man well known in 
commercial circles, to whom he told his trouble. 
This gentleman laughed heartily at Edison's embar- 
rassment, returned with him to the bank, and 
" identified " him to the satisfaction of the cashier 
He received the money, " a great stack of it " as 

6 



66 EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 

he afterwards described the big bundle of bills, and 
then he was uncertain what to do with it. He 
carried it about with him for two days, afraid to 
trust it to a bank, and probably no one before or 
since has ever been so inconvenienced by an over- 
plus of wealth. In the end a friend persuaded him 
to open an account at a reliable institution, where 
he eventually deposited his forty thousand. 

This was Edison's first real start, though a greater 
triumph came to him when he gained the confidence 
of the President of the Western Union through a 
breakdown of the lines between New York and 
Albany. Dr. Norvin Green was President at that 
time, and he himself afterwards declared that it was 
entirely due to his stupidity and that of his associates 
that the corporation was so long in taking advantage 
of Edison's genius. The inventor had called on 
Dr. Green many times for the purpose of asking him 
to take up his improvements and inventions, but the 
President " turned him down " every time, believing 
that the schemes of so young a man could scarcely 
be worth serious consideration. But Edison did not 
give up. He knew that it was the Western Union 
that could best handle his inventions, and he was 
determined to exhaust every means in his power to 
persuade the Company to give him a trial. 

On the occasion of one of these many visits he 
found Dr. Green in a somewhat irascible state of 
mind, and in no mood to discuss inventions with 
him. As some excuse for his irritability he informed 
Edison that they were unable to get into communica- 
tion with Albany, and that a considerable amount 
of business was being held up. " Perhaps," said Dr. 
Green, " as you know so much about telegraphy, you 
will come to our assistance and fix things up for us? " 







S &3 





EDISON LOCATES A "BREAK" 67 

His tones were not entirely confident, and some of 
his associates even smiled. But Edison saw his 
opportunity and was quick to make a bargain. 

" Dr. Green/* he said, " if I locate this trouble 
within two or three hours, will you take up my 
inventions and give them honest consideration ? " 
The President instantly gave his word, and, seeing 
Edison's eagerness, added : " I will consider your 
inventions if you get us out of this fix within two 
days." Edison made a rush for the main office, and, 
as he was already well known there as an expert 
operator, every one was ready to assist him. 

It was not until years after that Edison related 
how he went to work to find out where the trouble 
lay. Here is the story in his own words : " At 
the main office," he says, " I called up Pittsburg 
and asked for the best operator there. When I 
had got him I told him to call up the best man at 
Albany, and direct him to telegraph down the line 
toward New York as far as he could, and report 
back to me as soon as possible. Inside of an 
hour I received this telegram : ' I can telegraph all 
right down to within two miles of Poughkeepsie, and 
there is trouble with the wire there.' I then went 
back to the office of the President and told him that 
if a train should be sent to Poughkeepsie with 
materials for the work, they would find a break two 
miles on the other side of Poughkeepsie, and could 
repair it that afternoon." The break was located and 
repaired, and Dr. Green completed his part of the 
contract by considering every invention which Edison 
afterwards brought to him. 

With his first cheque Edison was enabled to carry 
out a long-cherished plan. He gave up his little shop 
in New York, resigned his position as manager of 



6S EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 

the Gold and Stock Indicator, and opened up a 
factory in Newark, NJ., where he soon gathered 
around him a small army of assistants. Here he not 
only manufactured his improved " tickers " and sent 
them out in large numbers, but he also busied 
himself with many brilliant and new inventions 
which began to issue from his creative mind in 
bewildering profusion. He had already sold his 
duplex telegraph to the Western Union, and the 
Company now had a contract with him by which 
they held an option on all his future telegraphic 
inventions. 

The duplex was Edison's first important invention 
connected with electrical telegraphy, and embodied a 
method of multiple transmission which doubled the 
capacity of a single wire. " By this instrument," 
wrote the late Luther Stieringer in his descriptive 
catalogue of the Edison inventions exhibited at the 
Paris Exposition of 1889, "two messages can be sent 
in opposite directions at the same time over the 
same wire without any confusion or obstruction to 
each other. The attempt to run two trains on the 
same track in opposite directions at the same time 
is attended with results too familiar to need mention, 
but in duplex telegraphy a skilful adjustment of 
the apparatus at each end of the line enables a 
strictly analogous idea to be put into force with 
the most brilliant success. 

" The principle or electrical fact from which the 
invention is built up is that currents of electricity 
split up and follow any number of paths that may 
be opened to them exactly in proportion to the 
resistance that the wire offers to their passage, just as 
water flowing through a set of pipes will fill them 
in exact proportion to their size. The apparatus at 



THE QUADRUPLEX TELEGRAPH 69 

each end so embodies this principle that each set is 
unresponsive to the movements of its own trans- 
mitting key, although at the same time it responds to 
every movement of the key operated at the distant 
station. The great feature is the use of an artificial 
line furnished by a rheostat and supplemented by 
a condenser, and balancing the real line actually in 
service, so that the current is divided between the 
artificial line and the real line — in the one doing 
nothing, and in the other carrying the impulses that 
constitute the message." 

Having perfected this invention, which Edison sold 
outright to the Western Union, the inventor decided 
to go one better, and turned his attention to the now 
familiar quadruplex, which he devised in 1874. This 
not only doubled the capacity of a single wire, but 
made possible the simultaneous transmission of two 
messages each way. The principle involved is that 
of working over the line with two currents that differ 
from each other in strength or nature, so that they 
will only affect instruments adapted to respond to 
just such currents and no others. By combining 
instruments that respond only to variations in the 
strength of current with instruments that respond only 
to change in the direction of current, and by grouping 
a pair of such at each end of the line, the quadruplex 
was the result. With this invention there are two 
sending and two receiving operators at each end, or 
eight in all, kept busy upon a single wire. 

The value of this invention it is impossible to 
gauge. It has saved the Western Union millions, 
which they would otherwise have had to expend in 
additional wires and their repairs. It has turned a 
hundred thousand miles of wire into four hundred 
thousand, and without any added cost. In other 



70 EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 

words, for every mile of actual wire the quadruplex 
adds three miles of " phantom " wire which perform 
their work just as reliably as though they really 
existed. For this invention Edison received thirty 
thousand dollars, the whole of which he spent in 
trying to invent a wire which would carry six 
messages. The attempt was not commercially suc- 
cessful, so that Edison derived little financial benefit 
from his quadruplex telegraph — perhaps the greatest 
invention ever conceived in connection with electrical 
telegraphy. 

Another important invention of Edison's in con- 
nection with telegraphy was his automatic telegraph. 
This instrument required that the message be pre- 
pared in advance. This was accomplished by 
perforating paper tape with Morse characters, the 
tapes being afterwards run through a transmitter at 
the highest possible rate of speed up to several 
thousand words a minute. In connection with this 
invention a characteristic story is told by his associate 
Charles Bachelor, who was for many years the in- 
ventor's right-hand man. " In the development of 
the automatic telegraph," Mr. Bachelor said on one 
occasion, " it became necessary to have a solution 
which would give a chemically prepared paper upon 
which the characters could be recorded at a speed 
greater than two hundred words a minute. There 
were numerous solutions in French books, but none 
of them enabled him to exceed that rate. But he 
had invented a machine that would exceed it, and 
must have the paper to match the machine. I came 
in one night, and there sat Edison with a pile of 
chemistries and chemical books that were five feet 
high when they stood on the floor and laid one upon 
the other. He had ordered them from New York, 



THE MULTIPLEX TELEGRAPH 71 

London, and Paris. He studied them night and day. 
He ate at his desk and slept in his chair. In six 
weeks he had gone through books, written a volume 
of abstracts, made two thousand experiments on the 
formulas, and had produced a solution (the only one 
in the world) which would do the very thing he 
wanted done — record over two hundred words a 
minute on a wire 250 miles long. He ultimately 
succeeded in recording 3,100 words a minute."* 

Two other inventions occupied Edison's attention 
during his Newark days. These were the harmonic 
multiplex telegraph and the autographic telegraph. 
The former is a system by which the inventor 
employed tuning-forks, or "reeds," actuated by 
electro-magnets, each reed serving as a key to 
transmit impulses over the line, so that the tuning- 
fork at the other end vibrating at the same frequency 
will analyse the current, so to speak, separating and 
selecting so much of the current as belongs to it. A 
number of tuning-forks can be operated at the same 
time on this principle, and as many as sixteen 
messages have been sent at once, or eight each way, 
by means of this harmonic multiplex system. 

The object of the autographic telegraph was to 
reproduce in one place the exact counterpart of a 
message written by the sender in another place. In 
the Edison autographic telegraph the message is 
written with a pencil on specially prepared paper. 
This paper is soft and spongy, and the pressure of 
the pencil makes a deep indentation in it. The next 
step is the transmission. The message is placed on 
a cylinder revolved by an electric motor, which is in 
synchronism with a similar motor and apparatus at 
the other end of the line, the cylinder of the latter, 
- Dickson's " Edison." 



72 EARLY TELEGRAPHIC INVENTIONS 

however, being of metal covered with a sheet of 
chemically prepared paper. A delicately adjusted 
spring is placed against the revolving drum at the 
sending end, and as the spring of wire passes over the 
paper and falls into the indentations produced in the 
messages it closes the circuit at the distant end of 
the line, where an iron spring or wire decomposes the 
solution in the chemically treated paper on the re- 
volving drum at the exact moment of making the 
circuit. As the pens at each end of the line are 
caused to move downward a trifle at each revolution 
of the drum the entire message is accurately re- 
produced. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TELEPHONE 

SOON after locating in New York and perfecting 
the printing telegraph for gold and stock 
quotations, Edison established a factory at Newark 
for the making of his "tickers," and here he went 
in extensively for experimenting along different 
lines. His entire mind, however, seems to have been 
engrossed with telegraphy, and he soon brought 
out the sextuplex transmission of messages. As an 
inventor and patentee he was now so well known, 
and his " applications " at the Patent Office were so 
numerous that the Commissioner on one occasion in 
an address spoke of Edison as " that young man in 
New Jersey who has made the path to the Patent 
Office hot with his footsteps." The public followed 
his work with the keenest interest, and there was 
scarcely a newspaper in the country but recorded 
from day to day some item of interest — either true 
or false — connected with the energetic inventor. 

But Edison soon found that he could not very well 
combine the superintending of the manufacture of 
his various inventions with experimentation, and so 
he went to Menlo Park, and there devoted himself 
entirely to perfecting some of those wonderful schemes 
which were for ever passing through his mind. He 

73 



74 THE TELEPHONE 

left the Newark factory in the hands of a capable 
manager, and henceforth became known as the 
" Wizard of Menio Park "—a title which stuck to him 
for many years even after removing his laboratory to 
Orange. 

Just about this time the possibility of employing 
electricity as a means of conveying speech great 
distances — or what was then considered great dis- 
tances — attracted universal interest, and many 
scientists engaged in the work of solving the fas- 
cinating problem. The idea, however, was not alto- 
gether new, for a quarter of a century previously — 
somewhere about 1852 — Charles Boursel declared 
that the time would come when conversations would 
be carried on over a wire with no greater effort than 
that required in ordinary speech. " I have asked 
myself," he then wrote, "if the spoken word itself 
could not be transmitted by electricity, in a word, if 
what was spoken in Vienna could not be heard in 
Paris. Suppose that a man speaks near a movable 
disc, sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations 
of the voice ; that the disc alternately makes and 
breaks the connection with the battery, you might 
have at a distance another disc which will simul- 
taneously execute the same vibrations." 

This was certainly a remarkable prophecy of what 
the telephone would ultimately become, and had 
Boursel possessed the genius required he would 
doubtless have given us a telephone built on lines 
almost identical with the instrument in use to-day. 
Boursel's idea was acted upon by Philip Reis, of 
Frankfurt, who succeeded in constructing a telephone 
furnished with a receiver which actually did reproduce 
sounds. " And," says a biographer, " had he only 
understood that by adjusting his transmitter so that 



INVENTORS OF FIRST TELEPHONES 75 

the contacts would remain continuously in contact, 
he would have had an articulating transmitter. 
Further than this, had he connected two of his 
receivers together and used one as a transmitter, 
speech might have been transmitted. With such 
apparatus of such possibilities it does, indeed, seem 
remarkable that the mere oversight of not having 
turned a screw a fractional rotation on its axis, or of 
not having connected two particular binding posts by 
a wire, should have shifted the honour of having first 
transmitted articulate speech from the shoulders of 
Reis to those of men living half a generation later." 
Reis's telephone was designed to carry music as well 
as words, and probably in the whole history of inven- 
tion no man ever escaped fame by so narrow a margin 
as Reis. Boursel did not try to turn his primitive 
idea to account, but became superintendent of tele- 
graph lines at Auch, France ; and the French Govern- 
ment, as some reward for the originality of his ideas 
in connection with telephony, created him Chevalier 
of the Legion of Honour — the only recognition he 
ever received. 

In 1875 two men took up the question of telephony 
— Alexander Graham Bell, of Salem, Mass., and 
Elisha Gray, of Chicago, 111. — and on February 15, 
1876, two applications were filed with the Com- 
missioner of the United States Patent Office, both 
covering an invention for " transmitting vocal sounds 
telegraphically." These came from Bell and Gray. 
The coincidence was a remarkable one, and, according 
to the Commissioner, without parallel in the annals 
of the Patent Office. When the applications came to 
be examined it was found that practically the same 
ground was covered by both, and therefore, in the 
granting of a patent, it became necessary to deter- 



76 THE TELEPHONE 

mine at what hour of the day each paper was filed. 
The chief clerk was put through a verbal examina- 
tion, and his day-book examined, with the result that 
priority was awarded to Bell, who was granted a 
patent on the 7th of March, or less than three weeks 
after making his application. Bell lost no time. He 
organised a company, which he called the Bell Tele- 
phone Company, incorporated it in the State of 
Massachusetts, and the manufacturing of instruments 
commenced. But the telephone at this stage was far 
from perfect, the public regarding it as an interesting 
toy rather than an invention which had great com- 
mercial possibilities. It was not practical. 

Then Edison's attention was aroused. He saw 
that, if perfected, the telephone would be of colossal 
use in business, and, abandoning telegraphy for the 
time being, he devoted all his energy and practical 
genius to overcoming those apparently insuperable 
difficulties which had halted Bell in his march towards 
success. Very soon after taking the matter in hand 
Edison invented the carbon telephone transmitter — 
a device which made telephony practical, and without 
which Bell's invention was useless. Bell wanted that 
transmitter, but Edison wouldn't sell the patent. 
And Edison couldn't make any practical use of his 
own transmitter without infringing on some of Bell's 
patents. Edison tried to evolve an entire system of 
his own, but found that there were certain Bell inven- 
tions which he must have. Bell attempted to use 
Edison's idea with regard to the carbon transmitter 
in a different way, but it was useless, he " infringed " 
every time. There was a contest between the two 
inventors and neither would give in. Their inventions 
were like certain elements — of very little use apart, but 
of immense value when brought together. Litigation 



THE CARBON TRANSMITTER 77 

followed, but the wisdom of a compromise made 
itself apparent to both electricians, and Edison 
yielded up his transmitter in exchange for certain 
benefits satisfactory to both. 

Bell made considerable money over the telephone, 
not by his patent rights, but by getting hold of a lot 
of stock and sticking to it. Before the formation 
of his Telephone Company, however. Bell had a 
strenuous time trying to get people interested in 
his enterprise. So hard up for money was he at 
one period that he offered a friend a half-interest in 
his invention for ;^500, but in spite of his assurance 
that the telephone would subsequently do away with 
the telegraph, the friend declined. To an official in 
the Patent Office Bell offered a tenth interest for 
^20, which was also refused. In fifteen years that 
tenth interest was worth ;£"300,ooo. 

A short time ago Edison was asked to explain his 
connection with the telephone, and with his usual 
modesty he replied : " When I struck the telephone 
business the Bell people had no transmitter, but were 
talking into the magneto receiver. You never heard 
such a noise and buzzing as there was in that old 
machine ! I went to work and monkeyed around, and 
finally struck the notion of the lampblack button. 
The Western Union Telegraph Company thought 
this was a first-rate scheme, and bought the thing 
out, but afterwards they consolidated, and I quit the 
telephone business." 

Besides his carbon transmitter Edison has done 
much other work in the field of telephony, and the 
receivers and transmitters of various designs which 
he has invented are too numerous to describe in 
detail. Among the many systems which he evolved 
for the transmission of speech, however, may be 



72^ THE TELEPHONE 

mentioned the water telephone, condenser telephone, 
electrostatic telephone, chemical telephone, various 
forms of magnetic telephone, inertia telephone, 
mercury telephone, voltaic pile telephone, musical 
transmitter, and the electro-motographic receiver. 

Luther Steiringer, in stating that the electro-moto- 
graph receiver and the carbon transmitter are Mr. 
Edison's most important and valuable contributions 
to telephony, adds that the inventor was the first to 
apply the induction coil to the transmission of speech, 
a factor so important that, without it, telephony on 
a commercial scale would be practically impossible. 
" The variable resistance of carbon under pressure," 
declared the late Mr. Steiringer, " used by Edison in 
other inventions, was again taken advantage of in the 
carbon transmitter. Its operation is briefly as follows : 
A carbon button, held by a light spring against the 
diaphragm, is placed in circuit with the primary wire 
of an induction coil, the battery being in the same 
circuit and the secondary of the induction coil con- 
nected to the line. When the diaphragm is set in 
vibration by the sound waves of the voice, constantly 
varying pressure is applied to the carbon button, 
altering its electrical resistance, and producing wide 
variations of current in the primary, and consequently 
similar changes in the induced current set up in the 
secondary. These induced currents are sent into the 
line and act on the receiver at the distant end. 

" A curious discovery," continues Mr. Steiringer, 
" made by Mr. Edison, and one which he has applied 
in quite a number of his inventions, is what he calls 
the ' electro-motograph principle.' He found that by 
placing a sheet of rough paper, saturated with certain 
chemical solutions, upon a brass plate connected to 
one pole of a battery, on passing over the paper a 



THE MOTOGRAPH RECEIVER 79 

piece of sheet metal (palladium) connected through a 
telegraph key to the other pole of the battery, when 
he opened and closed the key there was alternately 
friction and slipping of the metal strip on the paper, 
the passage of the current apparently producing a 
lubricating effect. This principle was adopted by 
Mr. Edison in his motograph relay, which he sold to 
the Western Union Telegraph Company, who, how- 
ever, never put it into extensive practice, as shortly 
after they consolidated with a rival company control- 
ling the patent for the electro-magnetic relay. The 
Edison motograph receiver, or loud-speaking tele- 
phone, is a modification of the electro-motograph, in 
which a cylinder of chalk revolved by a small electric 
motor is employed in place of the strip of chemically- 
treated paper. The palladium-faced spring, which 
rests on the chalk, is attached to a mica diaphragm in 
a resonator. The current passes from the main line 
through the spring to the chalk and to the battery. 
The ingenious instrument produced the voice with 
remarkable power and distinctness, and could be 
heard perfectly by a very large audience. The action 
of the instrument depends upon the variations in 
adhesion of the metallic strip to the chalk cylinder 
caused by the current coming over the line. As the 
strip or spring is connected to the receiving 
diaphragm, these variations produce corresponding 
variations in the diaphragm, the voice being repro- 
duced with startling distinctness." 

It is now nearly thirty years since Mr. Edison first 
exhibited this telephone, and an account of the 
interesting event may not appear out of place. It 
was first shown at Saratoga on the evening of 
August 30, 1879, the event being reported in the 
New York Tribune as follows : — 



8o THE TELEPHONE 

"The town hall was crowded with people, who 
were all interested and amused in the exhibition and 
description of the new chemical telephone, Mr. 
Edison's latest invention. On the platform were 
Professor Barker, Professor A. Graham Bell, Pro- 
fessor Borton, and Mr. Edison. President Barker, in 
a clear, simple, and popular way, gave a history of 
the telephone, and an account of the magneto receiver 
and transmitter, the carbon transmitter, and the 
improvements of the original invention. Mr. Edison 
amiably acted as draughtsman, illustrated the charac- 
teristics of the various machines by diagrams on the 
blackboard, which aided President Barker in his 
explanations. 

" Then the comparative powers and qualities of the 
various forms of transmitters were tested for the 
enlightenment of the audience. Mr. Bachelor, Mr. 
Edison's assistant, who is blessed with a most power- 
ful and resonant voice, but was afflicted last night 
with a cold in the head, was in a distant room in the 
building, to which the telephone wires were conducted. 
In the first place experiments were tried with the 
magneto transmitter and magneto receiver, and it 
was shown that only one person, and he only when 
holding the receiver to his ear, could hear Mr. 
Bachelor's vociferous remarks and thunderous songs, 
even though that worthy gentlemen strained his 
lungs to the utmost. Then the carbon transmitter 
and the magneto receiver were used, and a few 
persons close to the instrument could hear faintly 
Mr. Bachelor's shouts into the transmitter. The 
sounds were much louder than when the magneto 
transmitter was used, but could not be heard at all at 
a little distance from the receiver. 

" Finally the electro-chemical telephone was used 



TELEPHONIC EXPERIMENTS 8i 

with brilliant results. Mr. Bachelor's talk, recitations, 
and singing could be heard all over the hall, and the 
audience was delighted with such enchanting novelties 
as * Mary had a little Lamb,' ' Jack and Jill went up 
the Hill,' ' John Brown's Body,' ' There was a little 
Girl,' and the like. The assembly was spared one 
infliction, however — no selections from ' Pinafore ' 
were given. The telephone gave distinctly the 
singing of two and three persons at once, the talk 
of one person and the singing of another at the same 
time, whistling airs on the cornet, laughter loud and 
long, repetition of the alphabet and whistling together, 
and many other sounds. 

" Mr. Edison described the machine which worked 
these wonders and drew a plan of it on the black- 
board. He said, however, that he was not sure he 
could make it quite clear to his hearers, for he did not 
understand its operation entirely himself From a 
diaphragm extends an arm at right angles touching 
the cylinder of chalk moistened with a solution of 
phosphate in water. The arm is pressed against the 
chalk cylinder by a little block of rubber, which is 
pressed upon the arm by a screw touched by the 
finger of the receiver of the message, who keeps the 
cylinder in rotation by a little crank. The working 
of the instrument depends upon the principle that 
the passage of a current of electricity through a 
moistened substance prepared in the way the chalk 
cylinder is prepared prevents friction. Hence, when 
the electric waves come from the transmitter there 
is no friction during the passage of a wave, and this 
absence of friction effects the arm projecting from 
the diaphragm, and the diaphragm itself vibrates 
with an intensity greater than all the impulse which 
comes over the wire from the transmitter. Hence 

7 



82 THE TELEPHONE 

the enfeebling of the current by the length of wire 
that it passes over is made up, and the voice of the 
speaker or singer at the transmitter is heard nearly 
as loudly, or sometimes even more loudly, at the 
receiving instrument than at the transmitter. The 
current, however, does not pass directly from the 
wire leading from the transmitter to the electro- 
chemical apparatus. Owing to some defects in 
telegraph lines, Mr. Edison said that it is necessary 
to have two coils a very short distance apart. The 
current from the transmitter reaches the first coil, 
and a wave is set in motion in the second coil which 
goes to the chalk cylinder. 

" Mr. Edison said that he could, if necessary, con- 
struct instruments which would make the sound 
three or four times as loud as any man could shout. 
Three or four years ago he had a somewhat similar 
instrument at Saratoga, but moistened paper was 
used and not prepared chalk, and the instrument 
was imperfect. It would not transmit spoken words, 
but would transmit music, and a concert was given 
in New York and the music heard on the piazza of 
the Grand Union Hotel by the use of that instru- 
ment. 

" The receiving apparatus in the electro-chemical 
telephone has no ear trumpet at the end like the 
magneto receiver. The apparatus is in a small box 
with a crank at the side and a glass front, through 
which the screw passes by which the receiver presses 
on the arm extending from the diaphragm to the 
chalk cylinder. There is a little round hole at the 
top of the box. The inventor showed that it made 
no difference in which direction the cylinder was 
turned, or whether it was turned fast or slow. But 
if he stopped turning the crank the sound stopped 



A POPULAR LECTURER 83 

the same instant. The receiver has thus entire 
control over the message. No sound is heard until 
he begins to turn the crank, and the message only 
continues while the revolution of the cylinder is 
kept up. 

" Mr. Edison's explanation pleased the people 
greatly. His quaint and homely manner, his un- 
polished but clear language, his odd but pithy 
expressions charmed and attracted them. Mr. 
Edison is certainly not graceful or eloquent. He 
shuffled about the platform in an ungainly way, 
and his stooping, swinging figure was lacking in 
dignity. But his eyes were wonderfully expressive, 
his face frank and cordial, and his frequent smile 
hearty and irresistible. If his sentences were not 
rounded, they went to the point, and the assembly 
dispersed with great satisfaction at having seen and 
heard the renowned inventor and having seen and 
heard his most recent invention. Though the 
distance between the transmitter and receiver was 
short last night for convenience and to save expense 
of arrangement of wires, the electro-chemical tele- 
phone can be used at long distances as well as other 
telephones. It is certainly a remarkable instrument." 

Mr. Edison's manager at the time, Mr. Edward 
H. Johnson, in a statement subsequently given to 
the press, briefly explained how it came about that 
Edison became associated with the perfecting of the 
telephone. " The Bell patent," he said, " preceded 
Edison's, but soon after Edison improved the tele- 
phone by substituting the carbon button transmitter. 
The machine, however, was still far from what was 
required. It could not be used in Europe, and 
besides it involved law-suits brought by the Bell 
Telephone Company and defended by the Western 



84 THE TELEPHONE 

Union Telegraph Company which had bought 
Edison's patents. In this strait the English agent 
telegraphed to Edison : ' You must make a new 
receiver, and dispense with the magnet' That was 
a difficult undertaking, for the magnet was considered 
indispensable in every telephone to convert sound 
waves into electric waves and vice versa. At last it 
occurred to him that he might substitute moistened 
chalk with certain chemicals. He tried it, and it 
produced results which delighted him." 

The first practical telephone was exhibited in 
America at the Centennial Exhibition in Phila- 
delphia and the first recorded telephone message 
was sent over the wire by Professor Bell. It was 
the recital of Hamlet's " To be or not to be," and 
was spoken to Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. 
The telephone was first shown in Europe at the 
meeting of the British Association in Glasgow, 
September, 1876, and pronounced by Sir William 
Thompson as the greatest of all marvels connected 
with electric telegraphy. 

In an old volume of Chambers's Journal for 1883 
the following incident is recorded regarding one of 
the earliest forms of telephone : " The drum of the 
telephone," says the writer, " is a flat plate which has 
a fundamental note of its own, and it is more ready 
to vibrate in response to this note than to any other. 
Thus, the basic tones in the voice which harmonise 
with this fundamental note come out stronger in the 
telephone than the other tones which do not ; and, 
hence a certain twang is given to the speaker's voice 
which depends on the dimensions of the plate. Thus 
for men's low voices the plate of a telephone should 
be larger than for the shriller voices of women and 
children. This peculiarity of the instrument was 



AN ANGLOPHILE TELEPHONE 85 

amusingly illustrated at the Paris International 
Electric Exhibition of 1881 by Professor D. E. 
Hughes. 

" As a member of the scientific jury who were 
reporting on the various exhibits in telegraphy, 
Professor Hughes was examining — along with his 
colleagues, comprising several eminent foreign elec- 
tricians — a telephonic apparatus devised by Dr. 
Werner Siemens ; but they could not make it 
answer to their voices. Various names of foreign 
savants were shouted in the mouthpiece of the 
telephone, but it would not respond. At length 
Professor Hughes, who is an accomplished musician, 
stepped forward and secretly ascertained the funda- 
mental note of the telephone by tapping its plate. 
He then turned to his fellow-jurors with a smile, and 
remarked that there was a peculiarity about this 
telephone : it was an Anglophile and would only 
respond to the honoured name of Faraday. The 
jurors naturally treated his words with amiable 
derision ; but this, however, was soon changed to 
wonder when, after crying over the names of 
Franklin, Ohm, Volta, Ampere, and others, the 
telephone remained obstinately uncertain until he 
pronounced the magic syllables, FAR-A-DAY, to 
which it joyously responded. The word Faraday 
had simply been spoken by him in the same tone of 
voice as the fundamental note of the telephone plate." 

It is frequently declared that there is nothing new 
under the sun, yet it may surprise some readers to 
learn, on the authority of the noted Dr. Bach, that 
the Catuquinary Indians in the Valley of the Amazon 
had a system of telephony generations before the 
transmission of sound by electricity attracted the 
attention of modern scientists. " I found," wrote 



86 THE TELEPHONE 

Dr. Bach, some years ago, in an American geographi- 
cal magazine, " that each habitation or malocca occu- 
pied by the tribe was suppHed with a cambarysu, or 
telegraph, which enabled them to communicate with 
each other. The machine consists of a hollow piece 
of hard palm wood filled with sand, hide, resin, and 
rubber. This is struck with a club of wood coated 
with rubber and hide. 

" There is one of these instruments hidden in each 
malocca, and the maloccas are about a mile distant 
one from the other, and all on a direct line north and 
south. It appears that the instruments are en rapport 
with each other, and, when struck with a club, the 
neighbouring ones to the north and south, if not 
above a mile distant, respond to or echo the blow. 
To this an Indian answers by striking the instrument 
in the malocca with which it is desired to communi- 
cate, which blow in turn is echoed by the instrument 
originally struck. Each malocca has its own series 
of signals. So enclosed is each instrument in the 
malocca that, when standing outside and near the 
building it is difficult to hear, but, nevertheless, it is 
heard distinctly in the next malocca a mile distant 
in the manner indicated. The Tuchan gave me an 
example of signalling. With a prolonged interval, 
he twice struck the instrument with a club, which, 
as I understood, was to indicate attention or that a 
conference was required. This was responded to by 
the same instrument as a result of a single blow 
given by some one on the next apparatus a mile 
distant. Then commenced a long conversation which 
I could not comprehend. So long before we had our 
telephone connecting house to house, these remote 
Indians of South America had got what served some- 
thing of the same purpose." 



TELEPHONING ACROSS ATLANTIC ^7 

Some time ago Mr. Edison was interviewed on the 
subject of telephoning across the sea. Apparently 
the inventor does not think this very probable, for 
he said : " I do not believe we will ever be able to 
telephone across the Atlantic owing to the electrifica- 
tion of the gutta-percha covering of the cable. Every 
substance will electrify somewhat, so the difficulty 
will not be overcome by discarding what is now used. 
Between Valencia and Heart's Content the tons of 
gutta-percha on the cable play a large part in its 
operation. Every bit of it has to be electrified before 
a single signal can be sent. And when the current 
is cut off at Valencia after being operated it still 
continues to flow into Heart's Content for a com- 
paratively long time afterwards. This all interferes 
with the sound waves. Even in telegraphing there 
is no real break between flashes, and there are only 
ten or twelve sound waves per second. In tele- 
phoning there would be two or three thousand in 
the same time. The only way to get over it would 
be to employ some other force that would not affect 
surrounding matter." 

The question whether the voice causes vibration in 
the telephone has often been asked, and a short time 
ago the matter was fully discussed in the press. On 
the question being put to Mr. Albert H. Walker, the 
well-known American electrician, he replied : " In 
Bell's original telephone the human voice did cause 
the line to vibrate electrically though not mechani- 
cally ; but that telephone could propagate electrical 
vibrations only a few hundred feet at most. The 
telephone in actual use to-day is the Edison variable 
resistance transmitter. In that system the voice 
supplies none of the energy that traverses the wire. 
The energy is supplied by a battery or a dynamo 



88 THE TELEPHONE 

sending a constant current over the line. The voice 
merely vibrates the little diaphragm in the trans- 
mitter, and the vibration simply moves a little bit 
of carbon in the transmitter into more or less contact 
with another little bit of carbon. That slight move- 
ment varies the electrical resistance of the circuit 
and thus causes the current from the dynamo to vary 
in strength. The voice does not make the line wire 
vibrate any more than a locomotive engineer pulls a 
train of cars with his arm when he moves the lever 
that lets the steam into the cylinder of his engine." 

Considerable speculation has been indulged in as 
to the origin of the expression " Hello ! " as applied 
to telephonic conversation. Mr. F. P. Fish, President 
of the American Telephone Company, gives the credit 
to Edison. " Years ago," says Mr. Fish, " when the 
telephone first came into use people were accustomed 
to ring a bell and then say, ponderously : ' Are you 
there?' 'Are you ready to talk?' Well, Mr. Edison did 
away with that awkward un-American way of doing 
things. He caught up a receiver one day and yelled 
into the transmitter one word — a most satisfactory, 
capable, soul-satisfying word — ' Hello ! ' It has gone 
clear around the world. The Japs use it ; it is heard 
in Turkey ; Russia could not do without it, and 
neither could Patagonia." 

It might here be remarked that Edison is also 
credited with coining the word " filament," a term first 
used in connection with his incandescent electric light 
system. On one occasion, during the progress of a 
suit brought by certain infringers of his electric light 
patents in England, the London Electrician declared 
that it did not know what a "filament " was. It said : 
" If Edison had no other claim to immortality — and 
most people believe he is essentially well provided in 



CHOOSING TELEPHONE EXPERTS 89 

this respect — he still, we think, deserves all the credit 
which has ever been awarded him for his invention 
of the definition-defying term ' filament.' The highest 
available forensic, judicial, and scientific skill of this 
age and country have been brought to bear upon the 
question, and that not once only, but over and over 
again ; and still, as Judge Cotton plaintively remarks 
this week, we seem to be no nearer knowing what a 
filament really is. His Lordship inclines to think 
that it must be something which ' is formed before 
carbonisation,' but this only serves to show how far 
a reconciliation of legal subtilities and technical 
absurdities may remove the final issue from the 
category in which he who runs may read. For if 
this be indeed the definition of a ' filament,' then our 
admiration for the inventor of the term will be more 
than ever profound." 

During his investigations in telephony, and about 
the time when he had perfected his transmitter, Mr. 
Edison was frequently called upon to supply telephone 
experts — the requests coming from all parts of the 
world. Before sending out a man, however, he had 
a novel method of testing his capabilities — a system 
of examination which, if he passed, usually satisfied 
both Edison and his patron. " First of all," the 
inventor stated on one occasion to a writer in the 
Electrical Review, "we rigged up some telephones 
in the shop, and did all sorts of things with them. 
I would stick the point of a jack-knife through 
the insulation in spots and cut a wire, and in 
various ways induce ' bugs ' (in electrical parlance, 
something difficult to find) into these instruments ; 
then the boys were set to work to find out what was 
the matter with them. If a fellow could find out ten 
times inside of ten minutes what the various troubles 



90 THE TELEPHONE 

were he got his passage paid to the place where his 
services were required, and was started. About one 
out of three of the boys managed to stand this test, 
and I believe that every one of them who went 
abroad made money." 

As has already been stated, it was at the time of the 
invention and exhibition of the telephone that Edison 
was first referred to as the " Wizard of Menlo Park," 
and more was written about him, perhaps, than about 
any other celebrity. The public was amused as well 
as interested in hundreds of details published regard- 
ing the inventor — some of them true, but alas ! the 
greater proportion false. Pick up any periodical or 
newspaper of the time and you will find innumerable 
notes about Edison which will astonish you almost 
as much as they astonished the inventor himself. 
Mr. Fox, a magazine writer of some prominence, pub- 
lished in Scribner's for 1879 several articles dealing 
with the work of Mr. Edison, in the course of which 
he states that when true facts regarding the inventor 
ran out the United States litterateurs began the work 
of drawing upon their imaginations. "The hero of 
their labours," wrote Mr. Fox, " assumed all sorts of 
forms. Now he was a scientific hermit shut up in a 
cavern in a small New Jersey village, holding little or 
no intercourse with the outside world, working like 
an alchemist of old in the dead of night, with musty 
books and curious chemicals, and having for his 
immediate companions persons as weird and mys- 
terious as himself. Again he was a rollicking, 
careless person, highly gifted in matters scientific, 
but deplorably ignorant of everything else, a sort 
of scientific Blind Tom. Especially was he credited 
with the most revolutionary ideas concerning Nature. 
One Western journal represented him as predicting 



EDISON AT THIRTY 91 

a complete overthrow of nearly all the established 
laws of Nature : water was no longer to seek its level ; 
the earth was speedily to assume new and startling 
functions in the universe ; everything that had been 
learned concerning the character of the atmosphere 
was based on error ; the sun itself was to be drawn 
up in ways that are dark, and to be made subsidiary 
to innumerable tricks that are vain ; in short, all 
Nature was to be upset." 

A somewhat saner description of the inventor, 
published at the same time, came from the pen of a 
Mr. Bishop, who had frequent opportunities of study- 
ing the "Wizard." But neither could he resist the 
temptation of surrounding him with a kind of 
mysterious nimbus, to which Edison himself declares 
he never had any real right. " Of the number of 
persons in the laboratory," wrote Mr. Bishop, "remark 
one you may have least thought of selecting from the 
informality of his appearance. It is a figure of per- 
haps five feet nine inches in height, bending above 
some detail of work. There is a general appearance 
of youth about it, but the face, knit into anxious 
wrinkles, seems old. The dark hair, beginning to be 
touched with grey, falls over the forehead in a mop. 
The hands are stained with acid, and the clothing is 
of an ordinary ready-made order. It is Edison. He 
has the air of a mechanic, or, more definitely, with 
his peculiar pallor, of a night-printer. His features 
are large ; the brow well-shaped without unusual 
developments ; the eyes light grey, the nose irregular, 
and the mouth displaying teeth which are also not 
altogether regular. When he comes up his atten- 
tion comes back slowly as though it had been a 
long way off. But it comes back fully and gradually 
and the expression of the face, now that it can be 



92 THE TELEPHONE 

seen, is frank and prepossessing. A cheerful smile 
chases away the grave and somewhat weary look that 
belongs to it in moments of rest. He seems no longer 
old. He has almost the air of a big, careless school- 
boy released from his desk." 

From such a description as this one would suppose 
that the author were writing of a man bordering on 
old age, or at least nearing the seamy side of middle 
life. Yet at the time Edison was barely thirty and, 
according to those who were his associates, was just 
as full of fun, just as fond of a good story, just as 
genial and light-hearted as he was when a boy, 
or as he is to-day. But it was the fashion then to 
write of him in this strain, and the temptation to keep 
up the fashion was yielded to, even by those who 
knew him sufficiently well to describe him (had 
they wished to do so) as he really was. The public 
had taken it into its head that he was a real 
wizard, and the newspapers, at all events, took no 
steps towards dispelling the general belief. 

It may not be altogether out of place here to 
record a few facts respecting telephony as it is 
to-day — facts which were related by Mr. F. P. Fish 
recently in an address delivered before the Beacon 
Society. It may, for instance, appear somewhat 
curious to the lay mind that the energy required 
for a single incandescent electric light burner is 
5,000,000 times as great as that required to send 
a telephone message a thousand miles, and that the 
energy required to lift a weight of thirteen ounces 
is sufficient to operate a telephone for 240,000 years. 
The number of telephone subscribers in the States 
(the real home of the telephone) had, in 1905, more 
than doubled during three years over the total of the 
previous twenty-four years. 



A MAMMOTH SWITCHBOARD 93 

The telephone, Mr. Fish declared, would soon 
exceed the mail in the number of messages per day. 
To meet all the requirements of the service one 
million trees a year are necessary for poles, and the 
average cost of every class of message is 2*2 cents, 
which is not much more than the average cost of 
messages by mail. In 1902 twelve telephones for 
every hundred of the population in the United 
States were considered the maximum that it was 
possible to supply. Now the telephone people are 
looking ahead to a maximum of twenty for every 
hundred. The last report of the original Bell Com- 
pany showed the existence of 4,080 exchanges and 
branch offices connecting 30,000 cities, towns, and 
villages, and requiring the constant use of 3,549,810 
miles of wire. Through these wires travels a yearly 
total of over 3,500,000,000 telephone calls, handled 
by over 20,000 switchboard operators. 

At Cortland Street, New York, may be seen the 
biggest telephone-wire switchboard in the world. It 
is 256 feet long, in the shape of a horseshoe, and cost 
;£^20,ooo. This remarkable apparatus was installed 
about a year ago, taking the place of an old one 
which had become inadequate, and although the 
substitution involved the connecting and disconnect- 
ing of more than nine thousand wires, the change 
from the old board to the new was completed in two 
hours. This switchboard was the first to be supplied 
with small incandescent lamps, which glow while the 
subscribers are talking and which become dark when 
the receiver is hung up. By this means the instant 
the line is no longer in use the fact is automatically 
and silently indicated. On this switchboard there 
are 14,000 of these electric bulbs. Two hundred and 
forty-six operators attend to the wants of 9,300 



94 THE TELEPHONE 

subscribers, and the board provides for 470,000 con- 
nections, while there are 1,000 incoming trunk lines 
and 840 outgoing. 

The telephone has made its way even into the 
depths of the great forests, and to-day lumbermen 
are able to communicate with the outer world though 
they may be separated from it by hundreds of 
miles of solid timber. In the huge forest-belts of 
the old and new worlds numerous telephones 
have, during the last few years, been installed, and it 
is now declared by those whose interests are centred 
in the lumber trade that the time is not far distant 
when telephonic communication may be had with 
every mile of forest where loggers are employed. 

These telephones not only save an immense 
amount of time in the matter of communication 
with the different camps, but are also of inestimable 
value in cases of accident. It is related that soon 
after the first wires were installed in the forests of 
Vancouver a party of three men were bringing down 
a " two-hundred footer " when by some means it 
partly fell upon two of them, pinning the victims to 
the ground, but not seriously injuring them. The 
third man did his best to liberate his companions, 
but finding this impossible he communicated with the 
nearest camp by 'phone and was thus able to summon 
help, which arrived in a few hours. 

In the forests of Montana many telephone boxes 
have been fixed to the trees, and these are being 
increased so speedily that soon every logger will be 
able to communicate with the mills at any hour of 
the day, and also speak with the men who overlook 
the floating of the timber down the great rivers. 
Moreover, telephone wires are now being slung along 
the banks of these big waterways, and by this means 




Photo hy Byron, New York. 
MR. EDISON IN HIS CHEMICAL LABORATORY, ORANGE, NJ. 

Page 94. 



THE TELEPHONE IN THE FOREST 95 

of quick and easy communication it is believed that 
the big log-jams which are so constantly occurring 
will be avoided. 

Before the adoption of the telephone in the big 
Canadian and American forests, each lumber 
company was obliged to keep a large force of men 
always travelling from camp to camp, carrying 
instructions and messages from the mills ; and, 
though they sometimes covered thirty miles in a day 
(remarkably rapid progress when one remembers the 
density of these forests), much time was lost. Now, 
with the help of a few telephone wires, the same 
thing may be accomplished in a few minutes and 
at much less cost. Most of the logging camps in 
Montana and other States are now " rung up " at 
appointed times, the foreman receives his instructions 
over the wire, messages are exchanged, and the 
loggers, being allowed the use of the 'phone at 
intervals, thereby feel that they are not so entirely 
cut off from their families as formerly. 

Many of these lumbermen remain in the forests 
for a year at a time, and the camps are frequently 
a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles from 
civilisation. During these twelve months they never 
see their families and, formerly, seldom had any 
communication with them. For six months out 
of the twelve they are, perhaps, snowed in, and 
could not make their way to the frontier if they 
wished. Consequently the telephone has been hailed 
with delight by these men. By its means they are 
able to receive letters from their wives very fre- 
quently, for the owners of the big mills have made 
arrangements whereby any logger's wife may send a 
letter to headquarters and have the contents tele- 
phoned to the camp where her husband is stationed. 



96 THE TELEPHONE 

By means of the telephone, doctors are now 
enabled to visit patients without leaving their con- 
sulting rooms. Deaf people need no longer make 
their infirmity an excuse for staying away from 
church, for many places of worship are providing 
a number of pews with receivers and transmitters 
in direct communication with the pulpit. The 
telephone is a safeguard against burglars and thieves, 
and almost as sure a preventer of crime as the 
electric light. In England, and Europe generally, 
the telephone is still in a somewhat primitive state, 
while in America it has long since been brought 
to absolute perfection. To give some idea of the 
ease with which the system works in the latter 
country, it may be mentioned that recently a " long- 
distance" banquet took place there when the 
members of the Almuni Association of Washington 
University held simultaneous telephone dinners 
in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Portland. 
As it takes twenty-eight hours' continuous and rapid 
railroad travelling to get from New York to St. 
Louis it says a good deal for the excellence of the 
telephone service when it is stated that no hitch 
occurred over any part of the line, and that the 
voices of those who proposed and responded to the 
various toasts in the four cities mentioned, were as 
clear and distinct as though the speakers had been all 
in the one room. Eighty receivers and transmitters 
were arranged on the tables of each banquet, and 
the honour of proposing the first toast was relegated 
to Mr. William S. Curtis, of St. Louis, Mr. Grant 
Beebe, of Chicago, responding. Toast followed toast 
alternately, the last health being drunk at midnight, 
at which hour good-nights were said and the receivers 
hung up. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

THE genesis of the electric light is thus given in 
Mr. Edison's own simple words: "In 1878," 
he says, " I went down to see Professor Barker, at 
Philadelphia, and he showed me an arc lamp — the 
first I had seen. Then a little later I saw another — 
I think it was one of Brush's make — and the whole 
outfit, engine, dynamo, and one or two lamps, was 
travelling around the country with a circus. At that 
time Wallace and Moses G. Farmer had succeeded 
in getting ten or fifteen lamps to burn together in a 
series, which was considered a very wonderful thing. 
It happened that at the time I was more or less at 
leisure, because I had just finished working on the 
carbon button telephone, and this electric-light idea 
took possession of me. It was easy to see what the 
thing needed : it wanted to be subdivided. The 
light was too bright and too big. What we wished 
for was little lights, and a distribution of them to 
people's houses in a manner similar to gas. Grovernor 
P. Lowry thought that perhaps I could succeed in 
solving the problem, and he raised a little money and 
formed the Edison Electric Light Company. The 
way we worked was that I got a certain sum of 
money a week and employed a certain number 

8 97 



98 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

of men, and we went ahead to see what we 
could do. 

" We soon saw that the subdivision never could be 
accomplished unless each light was independent of 
every other. Now it was plain enough that they 
could not burn in series. Hence they must burn in 
multiple arc. It was with this conviction that I 
started. I was fired with the idea of the incan- 
descent lamp as opposed to the arc lamp, so I went 
to work and got some very fine platinum wire drawn. 
Experiment with this, however, resulted in failure, 
and then we tried mixing in with the platinum about 
lo per cent, of iridium, but we could not force that 
high enough without melting it. After that came 
a lot of experimenting — covering the wire with oxide 
of cerium and a number of other things. 

" Then I got a great idea. I took a cylinder of 
zirconia and wound about a hundred feet of the fine 
platinum wire on it coated with magnesia from the 
syrupy acetate. What I was after was getting a 
high-resistance lamp, and I made one that way that 
worked up to 40 ohms. But the oxide developed 
the phenomena now familiar to electricians, and the 
lamp short-circuited itself After that we went fish- 
ing around and trying all sorts of shapes and things 
to make a filament that would stand. We tried 
silicon and boron, and a lot of things that I have 
forgotten now. The funny part of it was that I 
never thought in those days that a carbon filament 
would answer, because a fine hair of carbon was so 
sensitive to oxidation. Finally, I thought I would 
try it because we had got very high vacua and good 
conditions for it. 

" Well, we sent out and bought some cotton thread, 
carbonised it, and made the first filament. We had 



WATCHING THE FIRST CARBON 99 

already managed to get pretty high vacua, and we 
thought, maybe, the filament would be stable. We 
built the lamp and turned on the current. It lit up, 
and in the first few breathless minutes we measured 
its resistance quickly and found it was 275 ohms — 
all we wanted. Then we sat down and looked at 
that lamp. We wanted to see how long it would 
burn. The problem was solved — if the filament 
would last. The day was — let me see — October 21, 
1879. We sat and looked, and the lamp continued 
to burn, and the longer it burned the more fascinated 
we were. None of us could go to bed, and there was 
no sleep for any of us for forty hours. We sat and 
just watched it with anxiety growing into elation. It 
lasted about forty- five hours, and then I said, ' If 
it will burn that number of hours now, I know I can 
make it burn a hundred.' We saw that carbon was 
what we wanted, and the next question was what 
kind of carbon. I began to try various things, and 
finally I carbonised a strip of bamboo from a 
Japanese fan, and saw that Lwas on the right track. 
But we had a rare hunt finding the real thing. I 
sent a schoolmaster to Sumatra and another fellow 
up the Amazon, while William H. Moore, one of my 
associates, went to Japan and got what we wanted 
there. We made a contract with an old Jap to 
supply us with the proper fibre, and that man went 
to work and cultivated and cross-fertilised bamboo 
until he got exactly the quality we required. One 
man went down to Havana, and the day he got there 
he was seized with yellow fever and died in the after- 
noon. When I read the cable message to the boys, 
about a dozen of them jumped up and asked for his 
job. Those fellows were a bright lot of chaps, and 
sometimes it was hard to select the right ones." 

LOFC 



loo THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

That is the whole history of the invention of the 
incandescent h'ght according to Mr. Edison's modest 
statement in an old number of the Electrical Review. 
His thirteen months of unwearied experimenting 
with different metals in his search for a suitable 
filament — carbon points he had hardly considered 
for a moment — were forgotten, but some account of 
those days of anxiety, dejection, hope, and final 
triumph must be given lest the reader come to the 
erroneous conclusion that the invention of incan- 
descent electric lighting was the thing of ease Mr. 
Edison would have us suppose. Had any other man 
encountered the difificulties — or half of them — that 
Mr. Edison did, we should still be reading by gas and 
studying by candle-light. From the moment he took 
the problem in hand he had no faintest doubt of being 
able to solve it, and to this, probably, is due the fact 
that however many disappointments he met with, he 
was never really downhearted or despairing. 

As Mr. Edison has stated, at the time that the 
question of electric lighting first occurred to him he 
was more or less a man of leisure, having just com- 
pleted his carbon telephone. Moreover, he had lately 
returned from a vacation spent in the Rockies, feeling 
particularly fit and ready to solve any scientific 
problem which might suggest itself After viewing 
the Brush light and determining that the chief and 
primary difficulty was one of distribution, he thought 
long and seriously before deciding which system he 
should adopt — the incandescent or the voltaic arc. 
Finallv, he decided that the former was the more 
practical. 

Then commenced those long months of experi- 
menting with platinum wire — wear}^ months spent in 
trying to find some means of preventing this hardest 



DIVIDING THE CURRENT loi 

of all metals from melting when the full current of 
electricity was turned on. Some of these experi- 
ments and the difficulties he encountered are touched 
upon in the chapter devoted to a lecture delivered 
by Mr. Edison in 1879. Many devices were invented 
in order to prevent the platinum fusing, among others 
being an automatic lever which regulated the current 
when the platinum approached the melting-point. 
This was soon discarded, as was also a diaphragm 
invented for the same purpose. 

At this period of his investigations Edison publicly 
stated that he felt no doubt of his being able to 
make the electric light available for all common 
uses, and that he would ultimately supply it at a 
cost below that of gas. " There is no difficulty," 
he said, "about dividing up the current and using 
small quantities at different points. The trouble is 
in finding a candle that will give a pleasant light, 
not too intense, which can be turned off and on as 
easily as gas. Such a candle cannot be made from 
carbon points, which waste away, and must be 
regulated constantly while they do last. Some 
composition must be discovered which will be 
luminous when charged with electricity and that 
will not wear away. Platinum wire gives a good 
light when a certain quantity of electricity is passed 
through it. If the current is made too strong, how- 
ever, the wire will melt. I want to get something 
better, I have a chemist at work helping me to 
find the composition that will be made luminous 
by electricity. We shall discover it in time." 

Edison had already made application for a patent 
in connection with what may be called his new plati- 
num tight, and the London papers were among the 
first to obtain a copy of the specifications. They 



102 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

scarcely met with approval by the British press. 
" This document," declared one journal, " reveals for 
the first time authoritatively the line on which Edison 
is experimenting. It reveals nothing new, however, 
for in one manner and another the substantial facts 
in regard to Edison's experiments had all been 
obtained previously. The Edison lamp, it appears, 
is a piece of metal which may be platinum, rhodium, 
titanium, ormium, or any other very infusible metal 
fashioned into a coil, helix, ribbon, plate, or any 
other form, and made incandescent. The current 
is regulated by a metal bar through which it passes. 
This bar expands when the current is too strong, and 
shunts or short-circuits the flow of electricity. Or it 
may be regulated by the operation of a diaphragm 
which is acted upon by the expansion of the air or gas 
enclosed in a tube. This is all that Edison's speci- 
fication aims at, so far as the apparatus of the lamp 
is concerned, and scientific men may judge for them- 
selves as to the probable success of the Edison light. 
The weak point of the lamp is this, that in order to 
be luminous, platinum must be heated almost to the 
point of melting. With a slight increase in the 
current, the lamp melts in the twinkling of an eye, 
and in practice the regulator is found to short-circuit 
the current too late to prevent the damage. It is this 
difficulty which must be overcome. Can it be done?" 
An English scientific publication, commenting 
upon the document, also attempted a prophecy. It 
said : " All anxiety concerning the Edison light may 
be put on one side. It is certainly not going to take 
the place of gas, and its invention would not have 
been regarded with the anxiety and interest which 
have been displayed had it not been for the state- 
ments of newspaper reporters on the other side of 



PROFESSOR TYNDAL'S OPINION 103 

the Atlantic. In the whole specification we have 
not one word concerning any new or extraordinary- 
contrivance for dividing the electric light." 

During the time that Edison was making his 
investigations towards discovering a means for 
dividing the electric current, and rumours were 
thick that he had solved the problem long before 
he applied for a patent, the leading scientific men 
of America and Europe strenuously declared it to be 
impossible. A committee was appointed by the 
British Parliament to examine into the general 
subject, and they called before them as witnesses 
nearly all the prominent scientists of the day. With 
the exception of Professor Tyndal they testified that, 
in their opinion, the subdivision of the electric light 
was a problem beyond the power of man to solve. 
Professor Tyndal said he would scarcely go so far as 
that — he would not say it was absolutely impossible 
but he would not like to undertake its solution. 

But there was one man, at least, who never 
doubted but that Edison would accomplish what 
he had set out to do. This was Grovernor P. 
Lowry, who had been one of the first to encourage 
Edison in his electric lighting investigations, and had 
been instrumental in getting together the necessary 
funds to enable him to carry on his researches. Mr. 
Lowry followed Edison's progress step by step with 
unabated interest, and spent much of his time at 
the Menlo Park laboratory. When newspaper men 
couldn't get hold of Edison they bore down on 
Lowry, and obtained from him just as much 
information as he and the inventor considered it 
was desirable they should know. Lowry kept a 
wide-open eye on the newspapers, and was con- 
stantly correcting misstatements which appeared 



104 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

from time to time in the American press. One of 
his many interesting letters, addressed to a New- 
York paper, is before the writer at the moment, 
and as it bears on Edison's investigations in 
connection with the electric light it is here repro- 
duced as a document of considerable contemporary 
interest : — 

" Dear Sir, — Your columns this morning contain 
the following, which you will undoubtedly be glad 
to correct : — 

"'It is understood that Mr. Edison is suffering from 
ill-health, and has given up his experiments with the 
electric light.' 

" My relation to Mr. Edison in respect to his 
inventions and discoveries in electric lighting gives 
me opportunity to know the truth about these 
matters, and the public interest concerning them 
makes it seem a duty to correct statements which 
I know to be erroneous. Mr. Edison's ill-health I 
learn indirectly from his family physician, Dr. Leslie 
Ward, and directly from Dr. E. L. Keyes, who visited 
him professionally two weeks ago at Menlo Park, 
was of a temporary character and not at all serious. 
For two weeks past Mr. Edison has been daily and 
nightly, as usual, at work in his laboratory upon the 
electric light. I spent several hours with him a few 
days since. He seemed in the highest spirits and in 
excellent health, and very enthusiastic over the results 
of his work in electric lighting. Since the state of 
progress in this work is of interest to the public 
I may avail myself of this occasion to state my 
view of the matter as it now stands, promising that 
I am not an expert. 



A FORTUNATE EXPERIMENTER 105 

" Mr. Edison first discovered some months since 
his new methods of dividing the electric light, or, in 
other words, of taking the electric current which, 
by long-known methods, produces (through incan- 
descence and slow combustion of carbon pencils) 
a single light equal, say, to 4,000 candles, and 
(passing it over an extended wire) distributing it 
at numerous points so as to yield at each point 
a separate light of, say, fifteen candles — the ordinary 
gas-burner power. He then devised a form of lamp 
intended, in connection with other devices, to enable 
him to produce with the same current such a number 
of separate lights that the sum of these divided lights 
would equal the sum of a single light produced by 
the carbon. 

" His first invention, as it will appear in the first 
patents to be issued, will but inadequately show the 
novel discoveries and devices which he has made 
even to this time, when, according to his own views, 
he is comparatively only upon the threshold of a 
new and wonderful development of electrical science. 
In the meantime, the proper exhibition of what has 
already been invented, as well as the study of the 
economical questions involved, require the erection 
of large buildings, engines, &c., which is now going 
on with the utmost rapidity. Pending their com- 
pletion Mr. Edison, far from having given up his 
experiments, is pursuing the great variety of them 
with his customary energy and even more than his 
customary good fortune. 

" In the meantime there is an interest somewhere 
to set on foot false reports affecting Mr. Edison's 
light, one of which, recently circulated in an up-town 
club, I beg space to correct. It was stated that an 
official paper emanating from the British Patent 



io6 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

Office had been seen which denied a patent to Mr. 
Edison. The author of the report would, perhaps, 
have been more careful had he known that the legal 
period fixed for the issue or denial of such a patent 
has not yet been reached, and that the existence of 
such a paper at this time is, therefore, impossible." 

Soon after the publication of Mr. Lowry's letter, 
Edison came to the conclusion that pure platinum 
was not — and never would be — suited to the pur- 
poses of successful electric lighting, and he therefore 
incorporated with it another material of a non- 
conducting nature, so that when the electric current 
was turned on one substance became incandescent 
while the other became luminous. By this means 
he obtained a very excellent, but not a permanent, 
light. Then, thinking more light-giving surface was 
needed, he covered many yards of platinum wire 
with a non-conducting material, " bunched " it to- 
gether, placed it in a vacuum, and turned on the 
current, but the experiment was a dismal failure. 
More regulators were invented, more materials tried, 
more schemes put to the test, and — more disappoint- 
ments the result. But the greater the failure the less 
Edison felt inclined to give up the fight. He argued 
that when everything had been tried and discarded, 
then what remained must be the right solution. And 
all the time he was a monument of encouragement 
to his associates — always good-humoured, always 
cheerful, always certain that the next day would see 
the victory. 

Thirteen months had passed. Thirteen months 
of tireless investigation, and at last Edison became 
convinced that he was on the wrong track. Plati- 
num and all metals must be abandoned. But what 



HOW FIRST FILAMENT WAS MADE 107 

was left? He was groping about in search of a 
finger-post that should point to the right path, and 
he couldn't find one. And then the secret was 
suddenly revealed to him in a way which clearly 
indicated that Nature, having enjoyed her year's 
sport, had at last made up her mind to reward 
the sturdy investigator for his courage by acting 
generously towards him. And the way she per- 
formed this gracious act is probably known to every 
reader, yet the story is worth re-telling. 

The inventor was seated in his laboratory alone 
one evening, a little serious over his thousand-and- 
one disappointments, though by no means crushed 
in spirit, and, as usual, thinking deeply, when his 
right hand, which lay idly upon the table, strayed 
towards a little pile of lampblack mixed with tar 
which his assistants had been using in connection 
with his telephone transmitter. Picking up a modi- 
cum of this substance he began rolling it between 
his finger and thumb, still wondering what one 
thing he had forgotten which should make the 
electric light possible, and little dreaming that it 
lay between his fingers. For perhaps half an hour 
he continued to ponder and at the same time to roll 
the mixture, until at last he had obtained a thin 
thread not unlike a piece of wire in appearance. 
He looked at it idly, and then began to speculate 
on its possibilities as a filament for an incandescent 
lamp. It was carbon, of course, and, this being so, 
might have strength to withstand the electric current 
to a greater degree than platinum itself. He deter- 
mined to put it to the test, and at once began the 
work of rolling out fine threads of the black com- 
position preparatory to placing them in the lamps. 

At no time during his investigations had Edison 



io8 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

been so well equipped for trying the virtues of carbon 
as at that moment. His experiments with platinum 
had all tended towards the production of a vacuum 
in a tube that was almost perfect — only one-millionth 
part of an atmosphere being left behind. Such a 
vacuum had never before been thought of, and 
therefore a better test to decide the properties of 
carbon as a conductor of light was hardly possible. 
With the assistance of his associate, Charles Bachelor, 
a thread of the lampblack and tar was placed in a 
bulb, the air exhausted, and the current turned on. 
A good light was the result, but it did not last — the 
carbon soon burnt out. But it had glowed with an 
intensity sufficient to prove that the inventor was 
at last on the right road. Edison then proceeded 
to look for some reason to account for the failure 
of the carbon to withstand the current, and he found 
it in the fact that it was impossible to get the air 
out of the lampblack, besides which the thread had 
become so brittle that the slightest shock broke it 
even after it had been inserted in the lamp. A 
carbon filament, he felt sure, was the right thing, 
but not in the form of lampblack and tar. 

Then Edison had a brilliant idea. He sent a boy 
out to purchase a reel of cotton, and when it was 
brought to him he declared his intention of seeing 
what a piece of carbonised thread would accomplish. 
It was a fibre, he explained, fairly tenacious, and did 
not contain any air, so that possibly it might stand 
a greater heat than the platinum or lampblack. His 
associates looked dubious — how could so frail a thing 
stand an electric current that would melt the hardest 
of metals ? Nevertheless the experiment was worth 
trying, and preparations were at once made to carry 
it out. A short length of the thread bent in the 



COTTON USED FOR FILAMENTS 109 

form of a hair-pin was laid in a nickel mould, securely 
clamped, and placed in a muffle furnace, where it 
remained for five hours, after which it was withdrawn 
and allowed to cool. The mould was then opened 
and the carbonised thread carefully taken out, when 
it instantly broke. Another piece of cotton was 
placed in the mould, carbonised, withdrawn, and 
again broken. Then commenced a battle for a per- 
fect filament which lasted two days and two nights. 
Let any reader try the experiment of carbonising a 
bit of thread and then handling it without injury, 
and he will get some idea of the nerve-racking expe- 
rience through which Edison and his men passed. 
At last they succeeded in taking from the mould 
one perfect and unbroken filament, but when they 
attempted to attach it to the conducting wire it 
parted again. It was not until the night of the 
third day after beginning their experiments with 
carbonised cotton — during which time no sleep or 
rest had been taken — that success came to them 
and the filament was placed in the lamp, the air 
exhausted, and the current turned on. A beautiful 
soft light met their eyes, and they knew that the 
secret of the incandescent electric lamp was solved. 
In after years Edison thus described the wrestle 
he and his associate had in placing the carbonised 
cotton in the first electric bulb : " All night Bachelor, 
my assistant, worked beside me. The next day and 
the next night again, and at the end of that time we 
had produced one carbon out of an entire spool of 
Clarke's thread. Having made it, it was necessary 
to take it to the glass-blower's house. With the 
utmost precaution Bachelor took up the precious 
carbon, and I marched after him, as if guarding a 
mighty treasure. To our consternation, just as we 



no THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

reached the glass-blower's bench the wretched carbon 
broke. We turned back to the main laboratory and 
set to work again. It was late in the afternoon before 
we had produced another carbon, which was again 
broken by a jeweller's screwdriver falling against it. 
But we turned back again, and before night the 
carbon was completed and inserted in the lamp. 
The bulb was exhausted of air and sealed, the 
current turned on, and the sight we had so long 
desired to see met our eyes." 

Edison and Bachelor watched that electric lamp 
for many hours. They turned on a small current at 
first, fearing that the frail filament would expire, but 
it withstood the heat so bravely that more current 
was called for until the tiny thread was bearing a 
heat under which platinum would have instantly 
melted. For forty-five hours the cotton thread lasted, 
and then with a suddenness that was startling the 
light vanished. But it left behind happy if weary 
men, who congratulated one another on the part each 
had played in producing a light which they knew was 
to be the world's future leading illuminant. 

The man who had the distinction of putting the 
first filament into an incandescent lamp — Charles 
Bachelor — had at the time been Edison's closest 
associate for several years. Edison always affirmed 
that Bachelor was the most wonderful man with his 
fingers that he had ever known, and during the hours 
and days he spent attempting to make a perfect 
filament, only to break it, he never showed the 
slightest impatience. Just as soon as he broke one 
he would go ahead and make another, ever cheerful, 
good-tempered, untiring. And when he finally suc- 
ceeded, and the filament he had spent so many days 
over glowed with the steady light familiar to us 



THE VALUE OF BAMBOO in 

to-day, no one was more generous in congratulating 
him than Edison. He had performed a work which 
no other man in the laboratory could have accom- 
plished — not excepting even the inventor himself — 
and ever after he was always spoken of as " Edison's 
hands." Later Bachelor enjoyed another distinction 
— he was the first man to have his portrait taken by 
the light of the new lamp. 

But the ideal filament was not yet found, for the 
carbonised cotton had only lasted forty-five hours. 
It was necessary to find a material which would give 
a light for at least a couple of hundred hours or 
longer before there could be any hope of the new 
invention being a commercial success. And so, with 
his usual impetuousness, Edison, after a sleep lasting 
nearly a day, commenced carbonising everything in 
sight. Under the microscope he had found that his 
original cotton filament was hard and polished like a 
piece of steel, and he believed if he could find a more 
homogeneous material than thread, the filament might 
last ten times as long. The entire staff of the labora- 
tory was set to work carbonising straw, paper, card- 
board, wood splints, and a hundred other things. In 
fact, during these carbonising days nothing was safe 
— umbrellas, walking-sticks, all vanished, and the 
probability is that if a lame man had called about 
that time his crutch would have gone the same way. 
Curiously enough, the best results were obtained with 
cardboard, which stood the electric current longer 
than the cotton thread. But after a few experiments 
in this line Edison concluded that cardboard was not 
what he was looking for either. Then the inventor 
got hold of a bamboo fan, tore off the rim which 
encircled the leaf, and from it produced a filament 
which gave the best results of any. As a conse- 



112 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

quence he concluded that bamboo was the material 
best adapted for his purpose, but though the fan 
had performed excellent service he believed that 
somewhere there was a bamboo or cane of better 
quality capable of being converted into a perfect 
filament. 

Edison immediately set himself the task of learn- 
ing all that there was to learn about bamboos. He 
obtained works on the subject, and soon made the 
interesting if somewhat overwhelming discovery that 
there were at least twelve hundred varieties of bamboo 
known, of which about three hundred were made use 
of in some way. The inventor pined to have a speci- 
men of each one, and it only took him about half a 
minute to make up his mind to send men out into 
the world to obtain them. He wanted the most 
homogeneous variety of bamboo that grew, and he 
meant to have it if it cost him his fortune. He didn't 
send one man, but several, and the search for a suit- 
able filament for the electric lamp cost in the neigh- 
bourhood of ^20,000. Among those who went forth 
on this historic bamboo hunt besides William Moore 
was James Ricalton, a New Jersey schoolmaster who 
made his way to the Malagan Peninsular, Burmah, 
and Southern China, covered 30,000 miles, and had 
many exciting encounters with wild beasts during a 
strenuous search for the correct kind of bamboo. 
Another man was sent to the Amazon and up the 
River de la Plata. Others to the West Indian Islands, 
South America, British Guiana, Mexico, Ceylon, and 
India. These men forwarded samples of bamboo 
and other fibrous plants to the Edison laboratory in 
bales, and all were tested by Mr. Edison. People in 
different parts of the world heard of Mr. Edison's 
search for bamboo, and joined in the hunt on their 



EXCITEMENT IN EUROPE 113 

own account, dispatching samples in generous quan- 
tities. Something like six thousand specimens of 
bamboo were carbonised, and out of these Edison 
found three species of bamboo and one species of 
cane which gave almost perfect results. All these 
grew in a region of the Amazon, and were difficult 
to obtain owing to malaria. It is interesting to know 
that the only part of the bamboo used was the outer 
edge of the cylinder after the removal of what is 
known to the botanist as the "silicious epidermis,'' 
and in order to produce good filaments the sections 
had to be cut parallel with the fibres. 

During these experiments at Menlo Park the 
greatest excitement was caused in Europe as well 
as America by rumours which stated that the electric 
light was a brilliant success, a dead failure, an in- 
■ fringement of some one else's patents, &c., while one 
story was published to the effect that the inventor 
himself had succumbed to the strain, and was in a 
dangerous state of health. Menlo Park was besieged 
by reporters who implored admittance to the labora- 
tory, but the gates were kept closed and watchmen 
put on guard to see that no unauthorised person 
entered. Many members of the stock company 
formed to introduce the new light called at the 
laboratory and were admitted, afterwards being 
eagerly button-holed by the reporters as they made 
their reappearance ; but they had been placed under 
injunctions of secrecy and would not talk. Mr. 
Edison, sympathising with the "newspaper boys," 
as he called them, sent out a message saying that 
" he had encountered several difficulties which he 
had overcome by inventions already patented, but 
he had made other discoveries more important than 
all in the way of making the electric light available, 

9 



114 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

and to disclose them to the public would endanger 
the success of the entire enterprise. Some delay 
would occur before application could be made for 
patents, as they related to materials which were not 
easily obtained in this country." 

At about this time, when Edison was on the eve 
of announcing that he had solved the incandescent 
lighting problem, it may not be without interest to 
look back and note Great Britain's attitude towards 
the inventor and his discoveries during these early 
days. The following letter addressed to a New 
York daily gives a fairly good idea of the hold 
which Edison's name had upon the British public 
just prior to his discovery of the carbon filament. 

" Mr. Edison divides attention with Shere Ali and 
is, on the whole, more fairly treated. Everything 
about him and his discoveries is eagerly published 
and as eagerly read. A watch was kept on the 
Patent Office for Mr. Edison's latest application in 
respect to the electric light, and some chagrin was 
expressed at his delay in supplying an exact and full 
definition of his most recent discovery. Last week 
the leading journal devoted two columns in large 
type to Edison's * Tasimeter.' The merits both of 
the instrument and its inventor are ungrudgingly 
recognised, and the writer, evidently a scientific man, 
' ventures to predict that before many years have 
passed the Tasimeter will be ranked among the 
most effective of those instruments by which science 
has endeavoured to solve the mysteries of molecular 
physics.' In fact, nobody any longer pretends to 
disparage Mr. Edison or to doubt the practical 
value of his genius. Nobody, unless it be a certain 
baronet of Devonshire, Sir Lawrence Palk, who 
sneers at Mr. Edison as a * Yankee,' and thinks 



EDISON'S FIRST SPECULATION 115 

gas shareholders may still sleep soundly in their 
beds. 

" Yet there never was a more remarkable tribute to 
the reputation of an inventor than that which these 
same gas shareholders, and the rest of the public, paid 
Mr. Edison on the first announcement that he had 
succeeded in dividing the electric light. If any other 
man had been mentioned as the author, the world 
would have waited for him to demonstrate the merits 
of his new process. But the most sceptical gave way 
as soon as they heard it was Edison." 

It was on October 21, 1879, that Edison discovered 
the carbonised cotton filament, and in January of the 
following year Letters Patent were granted him for 
his new and improved electric lamp. The specifica- 
tion in this interesting document, which is throughout 
in Mr. Edison's handwriting, is as follows : — 

"Be it known that I, Thomas Alva Edison, of 
Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States of America, 
have invented an improvement in electric lamps and 
in the method of manufacturing the same of which 
the following is a specification : — 

" The object of this invention is to produce electric 
lamps giving light by incandescence, which lamps 
shall have high resistance, so as to allow of the 
practical subdivision of the electric light. The in- 
vention consists in a light-giving body of carbon 
wire coiled or arranged in such a manner as to offer 
great resistance to the passage of the electric current 
and, at the same time, present but a slight surface 
from which radiation can take place. The invention 
further consists in placing such burner of great resist- 
ance in a nearly perfect vacuum to prevent oxydation 
and injury to the conductor by the atmosphere. The 
current so conducted into the vacuum bulb through 



ii6 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

platina wires sealed into the glass. The invention 
further consists in the method of manufacturing 
carbon conductors of high resistance, so as to be 
suitable for giving light by incandescence. 

" Heretofore, light by incandescence has been 
obtained from rods of carbon of i to 4 ohms 
resistance and placed in closed vessels, in which 
the atmospheric air has been replaced by gases 
that do not combine chemically. The leading wires 
have always been large, so that their resistance 
shall be many times less than the burner, and, 
in general, the attempts of previous workers have 
been to reduce the resistance of the carbon rod. 
The disadvantages of following this practice are 
that a lamp having but i to 4 ohms resistance 
cannot be worked in great numbers in multiple 
arc without the employment of main conductors 
of enormous dimensions ; that owing to the low 
resistance of the lamp, the leading wires must be 
of large dimensions and good conductors, and a 
glass globe cannot be kept tight at the place 
where the wires pass in and are cemented ; hence 
the carbon is consumed, because there must be 
always a perfect vacuum to render the carbon 
stable, especially when such carbon is small in 
mass and high in electrical resistance. 

" The use of gas in the receiver at the atmospheric 
pressure, although not attacking the carbon, serves to 
destroy it in time by air-washing or the attrition 
produced by the rapid passage of the gas over the 
slightly coherent, highly heated surface of the carbon 
I have reversed this practice. I have discovered that 
even a cotton thread properly carbonised and placed 
in a sealed glass bulb exhausted to one millionth 
of an atmosphere, offers from one hundred to five 



ILLUMINATION OF MENLO PARK 117 

hundred ohms resistance to the passage of the 
current, and that it is absolutely stable at very 
high temperatures ; that if the thread be coiled 
as a spiral and carbonised, or if any fibrous 
vegetable substance which will have a carbon residue 
after heating in a closed chamber be so coiled, as 
much as 2,000 ohms resistance can be obtained 
without presenting a radiating surface greater than 
three-sixteenths of an inch. I have carbonised and 
used cotton and linen thread, wood-splints, papers 
coiled in various ways, also lampblack, plumbago, 
and carbon in various forms mixed with tar and 
rolled out into wires of various lengths and 
diameters." 

It is generally believed that the above was the 
first statement made in writing by Mr. Edison in 
reference to his incandescent electric light. Previous 
patents, however, had been granted to him covering 
a new generator, a modification of the Sprengel 
quicksilver-pump for the production of a vacuum, 
and other parts of the process. Since then Mr. 
Edison has taken out one hundred and sixty-nine 
patents on electric lights. 

Having solved the difficulty of a suitable filament, 
Mr. Edison made a number of lamps which were strung 
along a wire and suspended from the trees in Menlo 
Park. They attracted world-wide attention, and the 
fact that they remained burning night and day for more 
than a week appeared marvellous to the thousands 
who journeyed to Menlo Park to view the wonderful 
lamps. " The lamps," wrote one of the visitors at 
the time, " are about four inches long, small and 
delicate, and comely enough for use in any apart- 
ment. They can be removed from a chandelier as 
readily as a glass stopper from a bottle and by 



Il8 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

the same motion. The current is turned on and 
off by the simple means of pressing a button. 
The lamp is simplicity itself in form and con- 
struction, and can be made for a very small sum. 
A few of the lamps which have been in use 
longest appear a little duller than the others, but 
this defect the inventor says will disappear as 
soon as he has carried out a few changes in the 
construction of the globe, which he contemplates 
doing at an early date." 

During the early days of January a general 
illumination of Menlo Park took place for the 
special edification of the New York Board of 
Aldermen, who went out to the laboratory at 
Mr. Edison's invitation on a special train. The in- 
ventor so arranged matters that the visitors arrived 
after dark, and the effect of the hundreds of bril- 
liant incandescent lamps glowing among the leafless 
trees was very remarkable. The lamps were strung 
along two big wires, and the way in which one 
could be extinguished or lit without interfering 
with the others appeared to strike the aldermen 
as being particularly wonderful. Among the visitors 
on this memorable occasion was Hiram Maxim. 

And during all this time that Edison had been 
perfecting the incandescent lamp his mind had 
been busy with another great idea — that of a central 
station from which consumers might obtain their 
electric light in the same way that they drew 
their gas. The initial difficulties of such an 
undertaking were gigantic. It must be remembered 
that electric lighting was an absolutely new art, 
and outside the Edison laboratory there was no 
one who knew what it was all about. There were 
no factories to manufacture the apparatus, no skilled 



THE FIRST CENTRAL STATION 119 

artisans to carry out the installing of an electric 
light system ; no one, in fact, with the exception 
of Mr. Edison's immediate associates, who could 
be trusted even to put a carbon filament in an 
exhausted globe. But Edison's mind had long been 
made up. His ambition was to see a central station 
built somewhere in New York, and he never rested 
until his ambition was realised. The story of how 
this first central station was built is one of the 
most interesting in the whole history of electric 
lighting. Many years ago Mr. Edison related some 
of his experiences in connection with this work in 
the American Electrical Review — the first and, I 
believe, last occasion on which he referred to the 
subject at any length — and to the Editor of this 
magazine I tender my thanks for permission to re- 
produce here some of the inventor's remarks : — 

" I had the central station idea in my mind all the 
time that I was pursuing my investigations in electric 
lighting. I got an insurance map of New York in 
which every elevator shaft and boiler and house-top 
and fire-wall was set down and studied it carefully. 
Then I laid out a district and figured out an idea of 
the central station to feed that part of the town from 
just south of Wall Street up to Canal and over from 
Broadway to the East River. I worked on a system, 
and soon knew where every hatchway and bulkhead 
door in the district I had marked was and what every 
man paid for his gas. How did I know? Simplest 
thing in the world. I hired a man to start in every 
day about two o'clock and walk around through the 
district noting the number of gas lights burning in 
the various premises ; then at three o'clock he went 
around again and made more notes, and at four 
o'clock and up to every other hour to two or three 



120 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

o'clock in the morning. In that way it was easy 
enough to figure out the gas consumption of every 
tenant and of the whole district ; other men took 
other sections. 

" After various other preliminaries we were fairly 
committed to the lighting project and started in to 
build the central station. You cannot imagine how 
hard it was. There was nothing that we could buy 
or that anybody else could make for us. We built 
the thing with our hands, as it were. At Menlo 
Park we started a lamp factory. Krusei was set to 
work making the tubes over in Washington Street, 
and we hired a kind of a second-class machine shop 
in Goerck Street and there started out making the 
dynamos, while Bergmann had a little place on the 
East Side where he made gas fixtures, and he went 
into making sockets and fixtures for us and did well 
with them. We started with our own money and 
credit — mostly credit. But we soon got the money 
put up for the station by starting the New York 
Edison Illuminating Company. 

" I planned out the station and found where it 
ought to go, but we could not get real estate 
where it was wanted. It cost us ;^30,CXX) for two 
old buildings down in Pearl Street where we finally 
settled. We had very little room and we wanted 
a big output. There was nothing else for it but 
to get high-speed engines, and — there were no 
high-speed engines in those days. I had conceived 
the idea of a direct-coupled machine, and wanted 
to hitch the dynamo direct to the engine without 
belting. I could not see why, if a locomotive could 
run on that speed, a 150 horse-power engine could 
not be made to run 350 turns a minute. The 
engine builders, when I asked them about it, held 



POWERFUL ENGINES 121 

up their hands and said ' Impossible ! ' I didn't 
think so. I found C. H. Porter, and I said to 
him, ' Mr. Porter, I want a 1 50 horse-power engine 
to run 700 revolutions per minute.' He hummed 
and hawed a little while, and then agreed to build 
it — if I could pay for it ! I believe he charged 
me ;£"840 for it. He got it finished and sent it 
out to the Park. 

" We set the machine up in the old shop, and 
we had some idea of what might happen. So we 
tied a chain around the throttle valve and ran it 
out through a window into the wood shed, where 
we stood to work it. Now the old shop stood on 
one of those New Jersey shale hills, and every 
time we opened up the engine and she got to 
about 300 revolutions the whole hill shook under 
her. We shut her off and rebalanced and tried 
again, and after a good deal of trouble we finally 
did run up to 700, but you should have seen her 
run ! Why, every time the connecting rod went 
up she tried to lift that whole hill with her ! 
After we got through with this business we tamed 
her down to 350 revolutions (which was all I 
wanted), and then everybody said, *Why, how 
beautifully it runs, and how practicable such an 
engine is ! ' We closed a bill for six engines, and 
I went to work in Goerck Street to build the 
dynamos on to them. Of course, we built them 
by guess work. I guessed at no volts — and I 
didn't guess enough. So we put extra pole-pieces 
on them, and in that way managed to raise the 
voltage to what I wanted. 

" While all this was going on in the shop we had 
dug ditches and laid mains all around the district. 
I used to sleep nights on piles of pipes in the station, 



122 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

and I saw every box poured and every connection 
made on the whole job. There was nobody else who 
could superintend it. Finally we got our feeders all 
down and started to put on an engine and turn over 
one of the machines to see how things were. My 
heart was in my mouth at first, but everything 
worked all right, and we had more than 500 ohms 
insulation resistance. Then we started another 
engine and threw them in parallel. Of all the 
circuses since Adam was born we had the worst then. 
One engine would stop and the other would run up 
to about a thousand revolutions, and then they would 
see-saw. 

" What was the matter ? Why, it was these Porter 
governors ! When the circus commenced the men 
who were standing around ran out precipitately, and 
some of them kept running for a block or two. I 
grabbed the throttle of one engine and E. H. Johnson, 
who was the only one present to keep his wits, caught 
hold of the other and we shut them off. Of course I 
discovered then that what had happened was that one 
set was running the other one as a motor. I then put 
up a long shaft connecting all the governors together, 
and thought this would certainly cure the trouble, 
but it didn't. The torsion of the shaft was so great 
that one governor still managed to get ahead of the 
others. Then I went to Goerck Street and got a 
piece of shafting and a tube in which it fitted. I 
twisted the shaft one way and the tube the other as 
far as I could and pinned them together. In this 
way, by straining the whole outfit up to its elastic 
limit in opposite directions, the torsion was practically 
eliminated, and after that the governors ran together 
all right. 

" About that time I got hold of Gardiner C. Sims, 



AN EPOCH-MAKING DATE 123 

and he undertook to build an engine to run at 350 
revolutions and give 175 horse-power. He went back 
to Providence and set to work and brought the 
engine back with him. It worked, but only a few 
minutes, when it busted. That man sat around that 
shop and slept in it for three weeks until he got his 
engine right and made it work the way we wanted 
it to. When he reached this period I gave orders 
for the works to run night and day until we got 
enough engines, and when all was ready we started 
the engine. The date was September 4, 1882 — a 
Saturday night. That was when we first turned the 
current on to the mains for regular light distribution, 
and it stayed on for eight years with only one 
insignificant stoppage. One of these engines that 
Sims built ran twenty-four hours a day for 365 days 
before it was stopped. 

" In those days we used the old chemical meters, 
and these gave us a lot of trouble, for, as they con- 
tained two jars of a liquid solution, there was always 
a danger of freezing in the cold weather. So I set 
to work to negative this difficulty and succeeded, as 
I thought, by putting an incandescent lamp in each 
meter with a thermostat strip, which would make a 
contact through the lamp when the temperature fell 
to 40 degrees. That idea, simple as it was, caused 
us a whole lot of trouble. The weather became cold, 
and then the telephone in our office began to ring 
every five minutes and people would say — 
" * Our meter's red hot. Is that all right ? ' 
"Then some one else would call up and say — 
" ' Our meter's on fire inside, and we poured water 
on it. Did that hurt it ? ' 

" As to voltmeters, we didn't have any. We used 
lamps. And I hadn't much use for mathematicians 



124 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

either, for I soon found that I could guess a good 
deal closer than they could figure, so I went on 
guessing. We used to hang up a shingle nail, tie it 
on a string alongside one of the feeders, and used 
that for a heavy current ammeter. It worked all 
right. When the nail came close to the feeder we 
screwed up the rheostat a little, and in this way kept 
the lamps looking about right. 

" I invented the fuse wire about the time of the 
aldermen's visit to Menlo Park. It had occurred to 
me that an interruption would be serious, and I had 
thought out the scheme of putting some fine copper 
wire in as fuses in various places. And when the 
aldermen came one fellow in the party who had a 
little piece of heavy wire in his hand managed to 
short-circuit the mains with his wire. He was very 
much surprised because only three lamps went out. 
The real reason that led me to think of the fuse wire 
was that we were not very flush of dynamos in those 
days. I had burned out two or three, and I saw that 
something was needed to prevent that happening 
again. After my experience with my short-circuiting 
friend, I had fuses put in all over." 

To the late Mr. Luther Stieringer I am indebted 
for the following brief description of the various 
methods adopted by Mr. Edison for registering the 
quantity of current supplied to consumers in those 
days : — 

" Many experiments were made with all sorts 
of mechanism, motors, clockwork, electro-magnets, 
springs, heat, electrolysis, electro-deposition, &c. 
Finally the Edison meter was evolved, and was found 
to answer perfectly. It consists of a small glass cell, 
containing a solution in which two zinc plates are 
immersed. A certain proportion of the current 



ELECTRIC LIGHT METERS 125 

entering the building is diverted through this com- 
bination, and an electro-plating action is set up in 
the cell, zinc being deposited on one plate from the 
other. According to a well-known scientific law, a 
current of certain strength will deposit just so much 
zinc in a given time, no more and no less. There-- 
fore, it is easy to see that if the plates are periodically 
weighed, the amount of current supplied between the 
times of weighing can be calculated to a nicety. 

" Mr. Edison has also invented various other instru- 
ments for measuring electric light currents, such as a 
weighing voltmeter, in which the current acts on coils 
of wire at one end of the beam, the other end being 
balanced by a cup filled with shot. The deflection 
of the pointer indicates the pressure of the current 
traversing the coil. In another instrument he causes 
the pressure, or electro-motive force, of the current to 
be registered on a sheet of paper, revolved by clock- 
work ; and in a third, which he has styled the 
* sonorous voltameter,' the action of the current makes 
itself known by a series of small explosions in a glass 
cell. Two platinum wires are immersed in water in 
the cell, and the current passing between them 
decomposes the water, causing small bubbles to rise 
to the surface and explode ; the cell is closed over, 
with the exception of an aperture provided with a 
funnel to magnify the sound." 

It is interesting at this date, when the thirtieth 
anniversary of the invention of the incandescent 
lamp is in sight, to look back and note the buildings 
which were first illuminated by electric light. It is 
claimed that the first office building to adopt the 
incandescent lamp was that of the New York Herald, 
where a complete plant was installed, and when that 
enterprising paper sent out the sailing vessel Jeanette 



126 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

to find the North Pole, one of her chief novelties was 
a complete installation of the Edison electric light 
system. She was lost in Arctic seas, and so it is 
more than possible that some of Edison's first lamps 
are still reposing beneath the waters of those icy 
regions. 

The first church lighted by electricity is generally 
supposed to have been the City Temple, London, 
while the first theatre was the Bijou, Boston, which 
was lighted by an Edison isolated plant, December 
12, 1882. There were 650 lamps used, and the first 
attraction given with the new illumination was, very 
appropriately, Gilbert and Sullivan's fairy opera 
" lolanthe." The proscenium arch was surrounded 
by 192 lamps ; 140 were placed in the borders, and 
60 in the chandelier of the auditorium, making a 
total of 392 lamps — the balance being placed in 
different parts of the building. No other method of 
lighting was provided, and there were no footlights. 

The first hotel to be lighted by electricity was the 
" Blue Mountain House," in the Adirondacks, where 
an Edison plant was started in 1881. There were 
125 lamps, each with an average life of 800 hours. 
It was also at this hotel that the first electric lamp 
was placed in an elevator car — July 12, 1882. The 
" Blue Mountain House " is situated at an elevation 
of 3,500 feet above the sea, and was, at the time of 
the electric light installation, forty miles from the 
railroad. The machinery was taken in pieces on the 
backs of mules from the foot of the mountain. The 
boilers were fired with wood, as the commercial 
transportation of coal was a physical impossibility. 
For a six hours' run of the electric plant, one-quarter 
of a cord of wood was required at a cost of 25 cents 
per cord. Regulation of the dynamo was effected by 



THE FIRST ELECTROLIER 127 

a rheostat in the office about 100 feet from the centre 
of distribution. 

The first electrolier was wired and placed in service 
some time during 1880, at the residence of Mr. Francis 
R. Upton, at Menlo Park, near Mr. Edison's laboratory. 
Great care was taken to distinguish the polarity of 
each conductor, the positive wires being of red and the 
negative wires of blue flexible cord. The lamps were 
from the first placed in an inverted position, which is 
now so familiar but then so novel. This electrolier 
was shown at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. 
The first private residence to be lighted by Edison 
lamps was that of Mr. J. Hood Wright, New York, 
while the first steam vessel to employ the same 
illuminant was the Columbia^ running between San 
Francisco and Portland, Oregon. 

The country which probably lagged longest behind 
in a general adoption of the electric light was Eng- 
land, due, no doubt, to the fact that in 1880 Parlia- 
ment passed a law whereby it was enacted that at 
the expiration of twenty years electric light plants 
were to be bought by the Government. The result 
can be imagined. Private enterprise was strangled, 
and gas as an illuminant remained triumphant. 
Eight years later, however, the law was repealed, and 
soon the electric light began to glow in every village 
and hamlet throughout the country. 

Over the electric light there has been more litiga- 
tion than any other of Mr. Edison's inventions. As 
he himself says : " I fought for the lamp for fourteen 
years, and when I finally won my rights there were 
but three years of the allotted seventeen left for my 
patent to live. Now it has become the property of 
anybody and everybody." One writer, in a letter 
addressed to the press, endeavoured to show that 



128 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

the incandescent light was used in the thirteenth 
century, and to prove his point quoted the following 
from a work entitled " Sorcery and Magic," published 
in 1852 : — 

" During the thirteenth century, for profit of the 
common people, Virgilius, on a great mighty marble 
pillar, did make a bridge that came to the palace. 
The palace and bridge stood in the middle of Rome, 
and upon this pillar made he a lamp of glass that 
always burned without going out, and nobody might 
put it out ; and this lamp lightened over all the city 
of Rome from the one corner to the other ; and there 
was not so little a street but it gave such a light that 
it seemed two torches there did stand ; and upon the 
walls of the palace made he a metal man that held in 
his hand a metal bow that pointed over and upon the 
lamp to shoot it out ; but always burned the lamp 
and gave light over all Rome. 

" And upon a time went the burgesses' daughters 
to play in the palace, and they beheld the metal man, 
and one of them asked in sport why he shot not ; and 
then she came to the man and with her hand touched 
the bow, and then the bolt flew out and break the 
Jamp that Virgilius made. And it was wonderful 
that the maid went not out of her mind for the great 
fear she had, and also the other burgesses' daughters 
that were in her company, of the great stroke that it 
gave when it hit the lamp. And this forsaid lamp 
was abyding after the death of Virgilius by the space 
of three hundred years or more." 

According to this original correspondent, the lamp 
of Virgilius was, without doubt, an electric lamp, 
and the newspaper that published his curious letter 
plaintively inquired: "What will the Patent Office 
do about it ? " The Patent Office, however, took no 



THE EDISON STAR 129 

action in the matter, but confined its attention to 
those living claimants who laboured under the de- 
lusion that they had invented the incandescent 
electric light system, and who cropped up as suddenly 
as mushrooms in June. 

While Edison was still experimenting at Menlo 
Park, and soon after he had given the exhibition of 
his first electric lamps, considerable excitement was 
caused by some humorous newspaper man spread- 
ing the report that what every one thought was the 
evening star was really an electric lamp which 
Edison had sent up attached to an invisible balloon. 
It seems almost incredible, but by thousands of people 
the story was believed, and for many nights within 
a radius of a hundred miles faces were turned upward 
to gaze on the mysterious light. After a time people 
in other States declared that they also could see the 
wonderful sight. The newspapers were inundated 
with letters asking for information as to how the 
light was really suspended, and what Mr. Edison's 
object was in sending it up such a height. When 
the papers assured the public that the wonderful 
light was nothing but the evening star at least half 
the people didn't believe it, and for years afterwards 
the subject would be revived from time to time by 
the publication of letters in the local press. As late as 
1895 the light was referred to as the " Edison Star," 
and the inventor often had a quiet chuckle over the 
idea that he should have attempted the illumination 
of the firmament Mr. Edison himself received many 
letters on the subject, but he never replied to them, 
hoping that the absurd story would die a natural 
death — which it did after reaching years of discretion. 

No other industry has grown to such mighty pro- 
portions as that of the incandescent electric light. 

10 



I30 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 

Twenty years after its invention the investment in 
electric lighting plants in the States alone amounted 
to the enormous sum of ;f 150,000,000. "This ex- 
traordinary achievement," said the statistician who 
made the estimate, "represents a struggle with 
powerful and well-organised competition of a long- 
established industry — that of gas illumination. It 
made its way against bitter opposition, against cor- 
rupt councils, and the difficulties and failures conse- 
quent upon over-capitalisation, to where it is now — 
one of the solid, certain industries of the world. 
Beyond any question the most marvellous develop- 
ment of this or any other century in the field of 
applied science may be seen in the electric lighting 
industry. There is nothing comparable to it in the 
whole history of civilisation. The average layman 
who sees the streets of the modern city and its stores 
made light as day has little conception of the amazing 
growth of the industry that has reached the highways 
of human progress with millions upon millions of 
incandescent bulbs." 



CHAPTER IX 
EXPERIMENTS WITH PLATINUM WIRE 

MR. EDISON has not often lectured in public, 
and the majority of those lectures which he 
has delivered have not, unfortunately, been preserved. 
One of his most valuable addresses, however, he still 
possesses, and as it shows some of the inexhaustible 
energy he displayed in his search for a suitable 
filament in connection with his invention of the 
incandescent light, besides describing much curious 
phenomena arising from the heating of metal in 
vacuo by means of the electric current, we reproduce 
it here with the inventor's permission. It was de- 
livered before a New York audience on September 2, 
1879, 3. short time prior to his discovery of the 
bamboo filament. 

" In the course of my experiments on electric 
lighting," read Mr. F. R. Upton from the writer's 
exquisite manuscript — for Mr. Edison himself was 
too busy to deliver the lecture — " I have developed 
some striking phenomena arising from the heating of 
metal by flames and by electric current, especially 
wires of platinum and platinum alloyed with iridium. 
These experiments are still in progress. The first 
fact observed was that platinum lost weight when 

heated in a flame of hydrogen, that the metal 

131 



132 PLATINUM WIRE EXPERIMENTS 

coloured the flame green, and that these two results 
continued until the whole of the platinum in contact 
with the flame had disappeared. Platinum wire 
Too'6 ^f ^^ i^^h ^^ diameter, and weighing 306 milli- 
grammes, was bunched together and suspended in a 
hydrogen flame. It lost weight at the rate of a frac- 
tion less than i milligramme per hour as long as it 
was suspended in the flame. When a platinum wire 
is stretched!between two clamping-posts, and arranged 
to pass through a hydrogen flame, it is coloured a 
light green, but when the temperature of the wire is 
raised above that of the flame, by passing a current 
through it, the flame is coloured a deep green. 

" To ascertain the diminution in the weight of a 
platinum wire when heated by the electric current, I 
placed between two clamping-posts a wire ^ wo °^ ^^ 
inch in diameter, and weighing 266 milligrammes. 
This wire, after it was brought to incandescence for 
about twenty minutes by the current, lost i milli- 
gramme. The same wire was then raised to incan- 
descence ; for about twenty minutes it gave a loss of 
3 milligrammes. Afterward it was kept incandes- 
cent for one hour and ten minutes, at which time it 
weighed 258 milligrammes, a total loss of 8 milli- 
grammes. Another wire weighing 243 milligrammes 
was kept moderately incandescent for nine hours, 
after which it weighed 201 milligrammes, showing a 
total loss of 42 milligrammes. 

" A platinum wire jo ^^ ^^ ^^^^ in diameter was 
wound in the form of a spiral ^ of an inch in diameter 
and J an inch in length. The two ends of the spiral 
were secured to clamping-posts, and the whole appa- 
ratus was covered with a glass shade 2j inches in 
diameter and 3 inches high. Upon bringing the 
spiral to incandescence for twenty minutes that part 



PLATINUM FILMS 133 

of the globe in line with the sides of the spiral became 
slightly darkened ; in five hours the deposit became 
so thick that the incandescent spiral could not be 
seen through the deposit. This film, which was most 
perfect, consisted of platinum, and I have no doubt 
but that large plates of glass might be coated econo- 
mically by placing them on each side of a large sheet 
of platinum kept incandescent by the electric current. 

" This loss in weight, together with the deposit 
upon the glass, presented a very serious obstacle to 
the use of metallic wires for giving light by incan- 
descence, but this was easily surmounted after the 
cause was ascertained. I coated the wire forming 
the spiral with oxide of magnesium by dusting upon 
it finely powdered acetate of magnesium ; while 
incandescent the salt was decomposed by the heat, 
and there remained a strongly adherent coating of 
the oxide. This spiral so coated was covered with a 
glass shade and brought to incandescence for several 
minutes, but instead of a deposit of platinum upon 
the glass there was a deposit of the oxide of 
magnesia. 

" From this and other experiments I became con- 
vinced that this effect was due to the washing action 
of the air upon the spiral ; that the loss of weight in, 
and the colouration of, the hydrogen flame was also 
due to the wearing away of the surface of the platina 
by the attrition produced by the impact of the stream 
of gases upon the highly incandescent surface, and 
not to volatilisation, as commonly understood. And 
I venture to say, though I have not tried the experi- 
ment, that metallic sodium cannot be volatilised in 
high vacua by the heat derived from incandescent 
platinum ; in effect, what may be produced will be 
due to the washing action of the residual air. 



134 PLATINUM WIRE EXPERIMENTS 

" After the experiments last described I placed a 
spiral of platinum in the receiver of a common air 
pump, and arranged it in such a manner that the 
current could pass through it while the receiver was 
exhausted. At a pressure of two millimetres the spiral 
was kept at incandescence for two hours before the 
deposit was sufficient to become visible. In another 
experiment at a higher exhaustion it required five 
hours before a deposit became visible. 

" In a sealed glass bulb, exhausted by a Sprengel 
pump^t to a point where a quarter of an inch spark 
from an induction coil would not pass between 
points one millimetre apart, was placed a spiral, the 
connecting wires passing through the glass. The 
spiral was kept at the most dazzling incandescence for 
hours without the slightest deposit becoming visible. 

" I will now describe other and far more impor- 
tant phenomena observed in my experiments. If 
a short length of platinum wire, toVq ^^ ^^ ^^^^ 
in diameter, be held in the flame of a Bunsen 
burner, at some part it will fuse and a piece of the 
wire will be bent at an angle by the action of the 
globule of melted platinum ; in some cases there 
are several globules formed simultaneously, and 
the wire assumes a zigzag shape. With a wire 
YQQQ of an inch in diameter this effect does not 
take place, as the temperature cannot be raised to 
equal that of a smaller wire owing to the increased 
radiating surface and mass. After heating, if the 
wire be examined under the microscope, that part of 
the surface which has been incandescent will be 
found covered with innumerable cracks. If the wire 
be placed between clamping-posts and heated to 
incandescence for twenty minutes by the passage of 
an electric current, cracks will be so enlarged as to be 



RENDERING METALS HOMOGENEOUS 135 

seen with the naked eye, the wire under the micros- 
cope presents a shrunken appearance and is full of 
deep cracks. If the current is continued for several 
hours these effects will so increase that the wire will 
fall to pieces. 

" This disintegration has been noticed in platina 
long subject to the action of a flame by Professor 
John W. Draper. The failure of the process of 
lighting invented by the French chemist Tessic du 
Motay, who raised sheets of platinum to incandes- 
cence by introducing them into a hydrogen flame, 
was due to the rapid disintegration of the metal. 1 
have ascertained the cause of this phenomenon, and 
have succeeded in eliminating that which produces 
it, and in doing so have produced a metal in a state 
hitherto unknown, and which is absolutely stable at a 
temperature where nearly all substances melt or are 
consumed ; a metal which, although originally soft 
and pliable, becomes as homogeneous as glass and 
rigid as steel. When wound in the form of a spiral 
it is as springy and elastic when at the most dazzling 
incandescence as when cold, and cannot be annealed 
by any process now commonly known. 

" For the cause of this shrinking and cracking of 
the wire is due entirely to the expansion of the air in 
the mechanical and physical pores of the platinum 
and the contraction upon the escape of the air. 
Platinum, as sold in commerce, may be compared to 
sandstone in which the whole is made up of a great 
number of particles, with many air spaces. The 
sandstone upon melting becomes homogeneous, and 
no air spaces exist. With platinum or any metal the 
air spaces may be eliminated and the metal made 
homogeneous by a very simple process. This process 
I will now describe. 



136 PLATINUM WIRE EXPERIMENTS 

" I have made a large number of platinum spirals 
all of the same size and from the same quality of 
wire ; each spiral presented to the air a radiating 
surface of three-sixteenths of an inch ; five of these 
were brought by the electric current up to the 
melting-point, the light was measured by a photo- 
meter, and the average light was equal to four 
standard candles for each spiral just at the melting- 
point. One of the same kind of spirals was placed in 
the receiver of an air-pump and the air exhausted 
to two millimetres ; a weak current was then passed 
through the wire slightly warming it for the purpose 
of assisting the passage of the air from the pores of 
the metal into the vacuum. The temperature of the 
wire was gradually augmented at intervals of ten 
minutes until it became red. The object of slowly 
increasing the temperature was to allow the air to 
pass out gradually and not explosively. 

" Afterward the current was increased at intervals 
of fifteen minutes. Before each increase in the 
current the wire was allowed to cool, and the con- 
traction and expansion at these high temperatures 
caused the wire to weld together at the point 
previously containing the air. In one hour and forty 
minutes this spiral had reached such a temperature 
without melting that it was giving a light of twenty- 
five standard candles, whereas it would undoubtedly 
have melted before it gave a light of five candles had 
it not been put through the above process. Several 
more spirals were afterward tried with the same 
result. One spiral, which had been brought to these 
high temperatures more slowly, gave a light equal to 
thirty standard candles. In the open air this spiral 
gave nearly the same light, although it required some 
current to keep it at the same temperature. 



EXCLUDING THE AIR FROM WIRE 137 

" Upon examination of these spirals, which had 
passed through the vacuum process, by the aid of 
a microscope, no cracks were visible ; the wire had 
become as white as silver, and had a polish which 
could not be given it by any other means. The wire 
had a less diameter than before treatment, and it 
was exceedingly difficult to melt in the oxyhydrogen 
flame. As compared with untreated platinum it was 
found that it was as hard as the steel wire used in 
pianos, and that it could not be annealed at any 
temperature. 

" My experiments with many metals treated by this 
process have proved to my satisfaction, and I have 
no hesitation in stating that what is known as 
annealing of metals to make them soft and pliable is 
nothing more than the cracking of the metal. In 
every case where a hard drawn wire had been 
annealed a powerful microscope revealed myriads 
of cracks in the metal. 

" Since these experiments of which I have just 
spoken, I have, by the aid of Sprengel mercury 
pumps, produced higher exhaustions, and have by 
consuming five hours in excluding the air from the 
wire and intermitting the current a great number of 
times, succeeded in obtaining a light of eight standard 
candles from a spiral of wire with a total radiating 
surface of ^^2 o^ ^^ inch, or a surface about equal to a 
grain of buckwheat. With spirals of this small size, 
each having passed through the process, the average 
amount of light given out before melting is less than 
one standard candle. Thus I am enabled, by the 
increased capacity of platinum to withstand the high 
temperatures, to employ small radiating surfaces, and 
thus reduce the energy required for candle-light. 

" I can now obtain eight separate jets, each giving 



I3S PLATINUM WIRE EXPERIMENTS 

out absolutely steady light, and each equal to 
sixteen standard candles or a total of 128 candles by 
the expenditure of 30,000 foot pounds of energy, or 
less than one horse-power. 

" As a matter of curiosity I hav^e made spirals of 
other metals and excluded the air from them in the 
manner stated. Common iron wire may be made to 
give a light greater than platinum not heated. The 
iron becomes as hard as steel and just as elastic. 
Nickel is far more refractory than iron. Steel wire 
used in pianos becomes decarbonised, but remains 
hard and assumes the colour of silver. Aluminium 
melts only at a white heat. 

" In conclusion it may be interesting to state that 
the melting-point of many oxides is dependant upon 
the manner of applying the heat. For instance, pure 
oxide of zerconium does not fuse in the flame of 
the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe, while it melts like wax 
and conducts electricity when on an incandescent 
platinum spiral which is at a far lower temperature ; 
on the other hand, oxide of aluminium easily melts 
in the oxyhydrogen flame, while it only vitrifies on 
the platinum spiral." 



CHAPTER X 

THE PHONOGRAPH 

THE phonograph was the result of pure reason 
based upon a very happy inspiration. In his 
early work with automatic telegraphs operating at 
high speeds, Mr. Edison had occasion to experiment 
with embossed strips impressed with dashes and dots 
thereon which were moved rapidly beneath a stylus 
to vibrate it. It was observed that this stylus in 
vibrating produced audible sounds. A small thing 
such as this would pass unnoticed by the ordinary 
observer as of no interest, but to a mind that is not 
only intensely alert but highly analytical it was 
regarded as a curious phenomenon. At this time 
Mr. Edison was actively working on his telephone 
experiments, so that his attention was largely 
absorbed by matters connected with acoustics. 
Simply as a matter of inspiration the idea of a talking 
machine occurred to Mr. Edison, and, remembering 
his experiments with the automatic telegraph trans- 
mitter, he concluded that, if the undulations on the 
strip could be given the proper form and arrange- 
ment, the diapraghm could be vibrated so as to 
reproduce any desired sounds. 

The next step was to form the proper undulations 
in the strip, and the idea was then suggested to 

139 



140 THE PHONOGRAPH 

Mr. Edison's mind that these undulations could be 
produced by sounds themselves, which could then 
be reproduced. When this complete conception was 
reached the phonograph was produced. Obviously, 
the change from a strip of material capable of being 
impressed by sound-waves to a cylinder of such 
material on which the sound-waves could be im- 
pressed in a spiral line was a refinement of the 
original conception which simply involved mechanical 
considerations. It is, therefore, rather an interesting 
fact that in the development of the phonograph the 
reproduction of the sounds preceded the original 
production of the record. 

Ten years after inventing the phonograph Edison 
wrote an article on the subject for the pages of the 
North American Review, a magazine for which he 
has always had an affection, and which in his early 
days was very nearly being the cause of his death. 
From this interesting paper we quote the following 
paragraphs : — 

" In the phonograph," writes Edison, " we find an 
illustration of the truth that human speech is governed 
by the laws of number, harmony, and rhythm. And 
by these laws we are now able to register all sorts of 
sounds and all articulating utterances — even to the 
lightest shades and variations of the voice — in lines 
or dots which are an absolute equivalent for the 
emission of sound by the lips ; so that, through this 
contrivance, we can cause these lines and dots to give 
forth again the sound of the voice, of music, and all 
other sounds recorded by them, whether audible or 
inaudible. For it is a very extraordinary fact that, 
while the deepest tone that our ears are capable of 
recognising is one containing sixteen vibrations a 
second, the phonograph will record ten or less, and 



ORIGIN OF "TALKING MACHINE" 141 

can then raise the pitch until we hear a reproduction 
of them. Similarly, vibrations above the highest rate 
audible to the ear can be recorded by the phonograph 
and then reproduced by lowering the pitch until we 
actually hear the record of these inaudible pulsations. 

" To make the idea of the recording of sound more 
clear, let me remark one or two points. We have 
all been struck by the precision with which even the 
faintest sea-waves impress upon the surface of a beach 
the fine, sinuous line which is formed by the rippling 
edge of their advance. Almost as familiar is the fact 
that grains of sand sprinkled on a smooth surface of 
glass or wood on or near a piano sift themselves into 
various lines and curves according to the vibrations 
of the melody played on the piano keys. These 
things indicate how easily the particles of solid 
matter may receive an imparted motion, or take an 
impression, from delicate liquid waves, air-waves, or 
waves of sound. Yet, well known though these 
phenomena were, they apparently never suggested 
until within a few years that the sound-waves set 
going by a human voice might be so directed as to 
trace an impression upon some solid substance with 
a nicety equal to that of the tide recording its flow 
upon a sand beach. 

" My own discovery that this could be done came 
to me almost accidentally while I was busy with 
experiments having a different object in view. I was 
engaged upon a machine intended to repeat Morse 
characters which were recorded on paper by indenta- 
tions that transferred their message to another circuit 
automatically when passed under a tracing-point 
connected with a circuit-closing apparatus. In 
manipulating this machine I found that when the 
cylinder carrying the indented paper was turned with 



142 THE PHONOGRAPH 

great swiftness, it gave off a humming noise from the 
indentations — a musical, rhythmic sound resembling 
that of human talk heard indistinctly. This led me 
to try fitting a diaphragm to the machine, which 
would receive the vibrations or sound-waves made 
by my voice when I talked to it, and register these 
vibrations upon an impressible material placed on 
the cylinder. The material selected for immediate 
use was paraffined paper, and the results obtained 
were excellent. The indentations on the cylinder, 
when rapidly revolved, caused a repetition of the 
original vibrations to reach the ear through a 
recorder, just as if the machine itself were speaking. 
I saw at once that the problem of registering human 
speech so that it could be repeated by mechanical 
means as often as might be desired was solved." 

John Krusei, the man who made the first phono- 
graph, died in 1899, but his voice is still preserved 
among hundreds of other records in the store closets 
of the Orange laboratory. Edison has often affirmed 
that Krusei was the cleverest mechanic who ever 
worked for him, and it was in no small way due 
to him that the invention of the phonograph was 
brought to so speedy and successful an issue. He 
was wonderfully quick at grasping the principles of 
any new discovery, and was an adept at making 
models which would perform all the duties expected 
of them. 

When Edison had conceived the phonograph he 
called Krusei to him, showed him a rough sketch 
of the proposed machine, and asked him to build a 
model as quickly as he could. In those days Edison's 
model makers worked by piece, and it was customary 
to mark the price on each model. In this instance 
the cost agreed upon was eight dollars. Krusei was 



THE FIRST MODEL 143 

asked how long it would take him to complete the 
model, and he replied that he couldn't tell, but he 
promised that he wouldn't rest until it was finished. 
This was in the Menlo Park days, when Edison was 
looked upon as the sleepless wonder. He was accus- 
tomed to his chief assistants working with him for 
two and three days at a stretch without rest, and no 
man showed more tireless energy than Krusei. He 
could do with as little repose as the inventor himself, 
and would become so absorbed in his work that 
fatigue was unfelt and time forgotten. The principles 
of the phonograph he absorbed with lightning rapidity, 
but it took him thirty hours to make the model — 
thirty hours without rest and very little food. At 
the end of that time he brought to Edison the 
historic machine which is now preserved in the South 
Kensington Museum. It was a large, clumsy affair, 
tinfoil was used as the material on which the identa- 
tions were to be made, and the cylinder was revolved 
by hand. 

If Edison was in any way excited on receiving the 
first model of his invention for recording human 
speech he did not show it, and those who were with 
him on that memorable occasion affirm that he 
regarded it at the time more in the light of a queer 
toy than that of a machine which would create 
any great sensation. Among those who were present 
when Krusei brought in his model was Carman, the 
foreman of the machine shop ; and this man, unable 
to believe what he had been told, bet Edison a box 
of cigars that the thing wouldn't work. The inventor, 
with much good-humour, accepted the wager, and 
then with a smile, born of absolute faith in his 
deductions, slowly turned the handle of the machine 
and spoke into the receiver the first verse of " Mary 



144 THE PHONOGRAPH 

had a Little Lamb." Then the cylinder was returned 
to the starting-point, and faint, but distinct, came 
back the words of that juvenile classic faithfully 
repeated in Edison's familiar tones. Those present 
were awed rather than astonished, and the tension 
was not broken until Carman, in accents of pretended 
disappointment, and with a look of assumed disgust, 
exclaimed, " Well, I guess I've lost." 

The first patent on the phonograph was filed in the 
United States, December 24, 1877, and was granted 
February 19, 1878, No. 200,521. Prior to this, how- 
ever, in an application filed in great Britain on 
July 30, 1877, No. 2,909, Mr Edison disclosed not 
only a cylinder phonograph, but also an apparatus 
embodying his original conception of an embossed 
strip. Under these circumstances, perhaps, it is not 
unreasonable that Great Britain should now possess 
Krusei's original model, though its loss is one which 
America will doubtless deplore in years to come. 

The phonograph has been described as the simplest 
machine ever invented — there is absolutely no com- 
plicated mechanism of any kind in its make-up — 
yet it is difficult to believe this when confronted by 
a description subsequently given in a court of law 
when " infringements " began to come in with that 
customary regularity attendant upon every new and 
successful invention. A document was filed describ- 
ing the " talking machine " in a way which made the 
inventor smile. " The phonograph," it declared, " is 
a machine for recording and reproducing sound, and 
from a commercial standpoint consists of two articles, 
one of which is commonly known to the public as 
the ' phonograph ' and the other as the * record.' The 
' phonograph,' as designated by the public aforesaid, 
consists practically of a lathe mechanism, having a 



A TECHiNICAL DESCRIPTION 145 

revolving shaft to which is attached a tapering 
mandril, connected by intermediate gearing, with 
which is a frame arrangement to move longitudinally 
with the shaft as the shaft revolves ; in this frame 
may be placed either of two apparatuses which are 
called respectively a ' recorder ' and a ' reproducer.' 
Each of these consists of a glass diaphragm to which 
by intermediate mechanism is attached either a 
cutting-point or a reproducing-point ; the mechanism 
having attached to it a cutting-point is called a 
'recorder,' and the one having attached to it a 
reproducing-point is called the ' reproducer.' 

" The record referred to consists of a tubular tablet 
or record blank of metallic soap, cylindrical on its 
exterior, and having a tapering bore suitable to be 
placed in the tapering mandrel. When this tablet or 
blank is placed on the mandrel, and the recorder is 
put in operative relation with it, and sound-waves are 
directed against the diaphragm of the recorder, and 
the mandrel is revolving, the sound-waves are on the 
tablet in the shape of a helical groove with indenta- 
tions and elevations in the bottom of the groove 
corresponding to the sound-waves. The tablet with 
this record of sound upon it becomes a record as the 
word is used by the public. When the sounds so 
recorded are to be reproduced the same operation is 
repeated, except that a reproducer is substituted for 
a recorder." 

Mr. Edison, on reading this lucid and interesting 
description, said it made his head swim, and he never 
before realised what a wonderful and remarkable 
invention the phonograph really was. The document 
deserved to be placed in the archives of phono- 
graphic curiosities. 

On the model of the first phonograph about fifty 

II 



146 THE PHONOGRAPH 

other machines were built, but these were almost all 
destroyed in subsequent experiments. Early in his 
work of perfecting his invention Edison discovered 
that tinfoil was practically worthless as a recorder — 
it did not retain the impression accurately, and after 
being used once or twice was useless. So he turned 
his attention to discovering a new and better compo- 
sition on which to record sound-waves. Wax imme- 
diately suggested itself, but after experimenting with 
many kinds he was convinced that a pure product 
was not what he was looking for. He studied works 
on the subject of animal and vegetable oils, and 
obtained samples of almost every known fat in the 
Old and New Worlds. Then he set half-a-dozen 
men to work melting, blending, and mixing a hun- 
dred different varieties, and finally obtained a combi- 
nation of waxes which seemed to answer his purpose. 
But the stuff was costly, and in order to economise it 
he made the cylinders of paper and covered them 
with the wax to a depth of about an eighth of an 
inch. The result was good records, but the cylinders 
were very fragile, and considerable care had to be 
taken in handling them. 

Edison was not satisfied. He saw with the eye of 
a practical man that the phonograph to be popular 
must be furnished with records capable of withstand- 
ing a certain amount of free usage, and this convinced 
him that a composition cylinder was the thing he 
wanted, so he discarded wax and tried stearate of 
soda. The result was all that he had looked for, and 
the Edison record as we know it to-day is made of a 
combination of ingredients which much resembles 
soap. Stearin, it may be mentioned, is, according to 
Webster, " one of the proximate principles of animal 
fat, as lard, tallow, &c. The various kinds of animal 



THE INVENTOR'S FORECAST 147 

fat commonly consist of two substances, princi- 
pally stearin and elain, of which the former is 
solid and the latter liquid. In particular instances 
several other different and distinct proximate prin- 
ciples are found in animal fats." Readers may be 
glad to remember this when next listening to an 
Edison record ! 

A few months after the invention of the phono- 
graph Edison was asked to forecast its useful- 
ness, and it may not be without interest to recall 
here what he said thirty years ago. He believed 
that the greatest use for the phonograph would be 
found in the office, where it could take all the corre- 
spondence and repeat it for the benefit of the letter 
writer. Authors, he thought, would use the phono- 
graph instead of the pen, and printers would set up 
the type direct from records. In the Law Courts 
witnesses would be compelled to speak their evidence 
into a " talking machine," which would also record 
the sayings of judge and counsel. For public 
speakers the phonograph would be valuable in 
enabling them to be heard simultaneously in a 
hundred different towns. It would take the place 
of readers in blind asylums, hospitals, &c., and as 
an elocutionary teacher, or as a primary teacher for 
children, it would, he declared, be invaluable. 

Continuing his prophecies, Mr. Edison said : " The 
phonograph will undoubtedly be largely devoted to 
music — either vocal or instrumental — and may pos- 
sibly take the place of the teacher. It will sing the 
child to sleep, tell us what o'clock it is, summon us to 
dinner, and warn the lover when it is time to vacate 
the front porch. As a family record it will be pre- 
cious, for it will preserve the sayings of those dear to 
us, and even receive the last messages of the dying. 



148 THE PHONOGRAPH 

It will enable the children to have dolls that really 
speak, laugh, cry, and sing, and imitation dogs that 
bark, cats that meow, lions that roar, and roosters 
that crow. It will preserve the voices of our great 
men, and enable future generations to listen to 
speeches by a Lincoln or a Gladstone. Lastly, the 
phonograph will perfect the telephone and revolu- 
tionise present systems of telegraphy." 

How much of this forecast has been realised is 
well known to the reader — certainly sufficient to 
stamp Mr. Edison as a very good prophet. Up to the 
present, however, the combination of phonograph and 
telephone has not proved a success, but there is time 
yet, and Mr. Edison still hopes to realise this prophecy 
made by him in 1878. A few years ago the combi- 
nation was tried in San Francisco, and a New York 
man on his return from a Western trip volunteered 
some information regarding the experiment of apply- 
ing an automatic phonograph to a telephone switch- 
board to do the work of an operator. " The result," 
he said, " was satisfactory to the telephone company, 
but it must have been heart-breaking to some of their 
subscribers. This phonograph was so arranged that 
when a subscriber called up a number that was busy 
the phonograph answered, ' Busy now. Call up later.' 
This was the invariable reply v/henever a busy num- 
ber was called over, and it was given in a monotonous 
tone of voice. 

" I admired the cleverness of the application until 
the manager said to me, * You know some of our sub- 
scribers are very profane, and perhaps you would like 
to hear their opinions. Here is Captain Blank, who 
has been calling a busy number now for five minutes. 
Listen to him.' Captain B.'s wire was swung on to a 
receiver, which I put to my ear. I never heard any- 



THE PHONOGRAPH PREDICTED 149 

thing like it. * You blankety blank, blank idiot/ he 
was saying, ' can't you say anything else but " Busy 
now. Call up later"? There you go again, you 
blamed idiotic chump. I am going up to the Central 
Office and kill you right away.' 'That,' said the 
manager, * is one of the drawbacks to this invention. 
It excites profane men unduly, and it might lead to 
violence.' I heard the opinion of several other San 
Franciscans who called busy numbers and received 
over and over again this monotonous reply, and I 
think the invention is open to serious objection." 

Two writers at least have predicted the phonograph. 
In 1839 an unidentified author — generally believed 
to have been the poet Hood — wrote : " In this country 
of inventions, when a self-acting drawing-paper has 
been discovered for copying invisible objects, who 
knows but that a future Niepce, or Daguerre, or 
Herschel or Fox Talbot might find out some sort 
of Boswellish writing-paper to repeat whatever it 
hears." 

The second writer to predict the phonograph was 
a woman — Miss Jean Ingelow — and she came out 
with her prediction only five years before it was 
realised. In a fairy story written by her in 1872, 
and entitled " Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-two," 
wherein she sought to forecast events a hundred years 
hence, there is such explicit reference to the phono- 
graph that it appears to be something more than a 
coincidence. Miss Ingelow certainly possessed the 
idea of such a machine, and had she been born with 
the inventive genius of Edison she might, perhaps, 
have forestalled him. The particular paragraph 
which has reference to the modern " talking 
machine " is here quoted : — 

" He began to describe what was evidently some 



ISO THE PHONOGRAPH 

great invention in acoustics, which, he said (confusing 
his century with mine) you are going to find out very 
shortly. ' You know something of the beginnings of 
photography?' I repHed that I did. 'Photography/ 
he remarked, ' presents a visible image ; cannot you 
imagine something analogous to it which might pre- 
sent an audible image ? The difference is really that 
the whole of a photograph is always present to the 
eye, but the acoustigraph only in successive portions. 
The song was sung and the symphony played at first 
and it recorded them, and gave them out in one 
simultaneous, horrible crash ; then when we had once 
got them fixed science soon managed, as it were, to 
sketch the image — and now we can elongate it as 
much as we please.' ' That is very queer ! ' I ex- 
claimed. ' Do you mean to tell me these notes and 
those voices are only the ghosts of sounds ? ' ' Not 
in any other sense,' he answered, ' than you might 
call a photograph a ghost of sight' " 

" The phonograph," relates a writer in an old 
number of the New York Herald, "came to the 
Edison laboratory and the first baby to the Edison 
home about the same time, and when the baby was 
old enough to say ' Goo-goo ' and pull the great in- 
ventor's hair in a most disrespectful manner, the 
phonograph was near enough perfection to capture 
the baby talk for preservation among the family 
archives. So Mr. Edison filled up several rolls 
with these pretty articulations and laid them care- 
fully away. 

" But this was not sufficient. The most picturesque 
thing about the baby's utterances was its crying, and 
the record of this its fond father determined to secure. 
How it would entertain him in his old age, he thought, 
to start the phonograph agoing and hear again the 



CAPTURING A BABY'S VOICE 151 

baby wails of his firstborn ! So one afternoon Mr. 
Edison tore himself away from his work, and climbed 
the big hill leading to his house. He went in a great 
hurry, for he is a man who grudges every working 
moment from his labours. A workman followed at 
his heels, carrying the only phonograph that at that 
time had been sufficiently completed to accomplish 
really good results. 

" Reaching home and the nursery, Mr. Edison 
started the phonograph and brought the baby in 
front of it. But the baby didn't cry. Mr. Edison 
tumbled the youngster about, and rumpled its hair 
and did all sorts of things, but still the baby didn't 
cry. Then the inventor made dreadful faces, but the 
baby thought they were very funny, and crowed 
lustily. So back to the laboratory went Mr. Edison 
in a very unpleasant frame of mind, for the baby's 
untimely good-humour had cost him an hour of work. 
The phonograph was also taken back. 

" But he didn't give it up. The next afternoon he 
went home again, and the phonograph with him. 
But if the baby was good-natured the day before, 
this time it was absolutely cherubic. There was 
nothing at all that its father could do that didn't 
make the baby laugh. Even the phonograph with 
its tiny whirring wheels the baby thought was meant 
for its special entertainment, and gurgled joyously. 
So back to work the inventor went again with a 
temper positively ruffled. The next day and the 
next he tried it, but all to no purpose. The baby 
would not cry even when waked suddenly from 
sleep. 

" But to baffle Edison is only to inflame his deter- 
mination, which, as has been remarked before, is one 
of the secrets of his success. So at length, after much 



152 THE PHONOGRAPH 

thought, he made a mighty resolve. It took a vast 
amount of determination on his part to screw his 
courage to the point of committing the awful deed, 
but he succeeded at last, and one morning, when he 
knew his wife was down town, he went quietly home 
with the phonograph and stole into the nursery, 
where the baby greeted him with its customary glee. 

" Starting the machine, Mr. Edison ordered the 
nurse to leave the room. Then he took the baby 
on his knee and bared its chubby little leg. He 
took the tender flesh between his thumb and finger, 
clenched his teeth, shut his eyes tight, and made 
ready to — yes, actually to pinch the baby's leg. But 
just at the fateful moment the nurse peeped through 
the door, and, perceiving the horrid plot, flounced 
in and rescued the baby in the nick of time. Mr. 
Edison breathed a mighty sigh of relief as he gathered 
up the phonograph and went back to the laboratory. 
He then gave up the project of phonographing the 
baby's crying. 

" But not long afterwards he accomplished his pur- 
pose in spite of everything, and quite unexpectedly, 
too. As soon as the baby was old enough to ' take 
notice ' its mother took it down to the laboratory one 
sunny day, and when the big machinery was started 
a-roaring, the baby screwed up its face, opened its 
mouth, and emitted a series of woeful screams that 
made Mr. Edison leap to his feet. 'Stop the 
machinery and start the phonograph,' he shouted, 
and the record of his baby's crying was there and 
then accomplished." 

Of all Edison's inventions the phonograph probably 
caused the greatest sensation. There was something 
so inexpressibly weird in the idea of capturing speech 
and preserving it for centuries to come, that the in- 



EMPEROR AND "TALKING MACHINE" 153 

ventor was regarded more than ever as a " Wizard." 
Every one wanted to hear the phonograph, and as 
soon as it was possible to make the machines a num- 
ber were dispatched to all parts of the world. In 
England and on the Continent it was the talk of 
the hour, and monopolised the attention of crowned 
heads and commoners alike, to the exclusion of 
everything else. Edison's name was in everybody's 
mouth, and if he had visited France at that time he 
would probably have been hailed more rapturously 
than even Napoleon when he escaped from Elba. 
But though he would not at that time risk visiting 
the old world himself (he hates to be lionised), he 
sent several of his best machines, one of which he 
dispatched by his faithful co-worker, A. T. E. Wan- 
gemann, the manager of the Phonograph Experi- 
mental Department, to Berlin. This was in 1888, 
and the young Emperor of Germany had expressed 
the liveliest interest in the invention. As soon as it 
became known that Mr. Edison's representative was 
in Berlin, together with one of the " talking machines," 
there was intense excitement. The newspapers were 
full of more or less exaggerated accounts of what the 
wonderful instrument would do, though few in that 
city had yet heard it. It was to be shown first of 
all to Emperor William. 

At his Majesty's special request, Mr. Wangemann 
took the phonograph one morning to the Palace, 
where, in the Emperor's private apartments, he ex- 
plained how the machine was worked. He took it 
apart, put it together again, explained the principles, 
made records, &c., until the young monarch knew 
almost as much about the phonograph as did the 
inventor. But his Majesty was not satisfied until 
he, too, had taken the thing to bits, put it together 



154 THE PHONOGRAPH 

again, made records, and was able to explain things 
as readily as Mr. Wangemann. Then he desired 
the latter to bring the machine to the Palace again 
that evening in order that the Court might listen to 
it. He would not be required to lecture on the sub- 
ject as his Majesty himself would attend to that part 
of the entertainment. 

Mr. Wangemann, of course, was quite agreeable 
and that night a brilliant assembly gathered at the 
Palace to hear the latest Edison wonder. The 
astonishment of those present, however, was in- 
creased a hundredfold when the Emperor himself 
appeared as lecturer, exhibiting the machine and 
explaining its mechanism as though he had spent 
his life in the Edison laboratory. With admira- 
tion they listened to the young monarch discourse 
on acoustics, sound-waves, vibrations, &c., and 
when he inserted a record, adjusted the machinery, 
set the electric motor going, and spoke to his 
audience through the medium of the phonograph, 
the excitement was intense, if suppressed. The royal 
lecturer remained for a couple of hours, alternately 
explaining details and reproducing records, after 
which he withdrew, leaving behind him the impres- 
sion among his courtiers that if the phonograph were 
wonderful the Emperor was more so. 

While Mr. Wangemann was still in Berlin, the 
Emperor again sent for him and requested that he 
would make some records of the playing of the 
Court orchestra. For this purpose the band 
assembled in the concert chamber, the performers 
being arranged according to their usual positions. 
Mr. Wangemann explained to the conductor that 
he would like to place the band a little differently 
putting certain instruments a little further back and 



AN INCENSED CONDUCTOR 155 

bringing others more to the front. But the con- 
ductor, a hot-tempered German, flatly declined to 
change the position of his men, they had always 
been placed so, and even for the phonograph, or 
the great inventor himself, he was not going to alter 
them. In vain Dr. Wangemann argued with him 
that for the making of a successful record the instru- 
ments had to be arranged according to their power 
and quality, the less obtrusive tones being nearer 
and the loud or shrill tones more distant. But it 
was no good, the conductor was unconvinced, and the 
band would play according to his views or not at all. 

Then Dr. Wangemann appealed to the Emperor, 
and to convince his Majesty he took a cylinder of 
the playing of the orchestra in the positions the 
conductor insisted they should be. His Majesty 
listened critically to the result. Nothing but a con- 
fusion of sounds assailed his ears. Was that his own 
matchless orchestra ? Impossible. He ordered the 
conductor to place his men in any position Dr. 
Wangemann desired, and the musician sadly obeyed. 
Then the phonograph was adjusted and a record 
made. The difference was extraordinary, all the 
beauties of tone and orchestration being clearly 
brought out. The Emperor was delighted. The 
conductor apologised, and in compliment to Dr. 
Wangemann his Majesty ordered the orchestra to 
play that evening in the position it would be if 
performing for the phonograph. At all future 
Imperial functions, however, the bandsmen returned 
to their ordinary places, greatly to the relief of the 
conductor and the comfort of the audience. 

Since then the German Emperor has taken the 
greatest interest in the progress made by the phono- 
graph, and when a few years ago he was asked to 



156 THE PHONOGRAPH 

give a record of his voice to be deposited in the 
Phonographic Archives at Harvard University, he 
graciously consented. The application was made 
by Dr. Edward Scripture, a psychologist, of Yale 
University, through the United States Ambassador 
in Berlin, and in a memorandum sent to the Court 
Marshall Dr. Scripture wrote : " The Phonographic 
Archives are to include records from such persons as 
will presumably have permanent historical interest 
for America. The importance of the undertaking 
can be estimated by considering what would have 
been the present value of voice records by Demos- 
thenes, Shakespeare, or Frederick the Great. I wish 
to record his Majesty's voice as the first European 
record deposited in the Archives." The Emperor 
received Dr. Scripture one Sunday after morning 
church, and referred to the occasion when Dr. 
Wangemann paid his first visit to Berlin so many 
years previously. During the making of the record 
the Emperor was alone with the phonograph. He 
spoke into it twice. The first cylinder, made specially 
for Harvard University, contained observations on 
Frederick the Great, while the other, intended for the 
Congressional Library and the National Museum, 
Washington, was a short disquisition on " Fortitude 
in Pain." His Majesty afterwards listened to some 
special records which Dr. Scripture had brought for 
the amusement of the Imperial family. 

During the early days of the phonograph it formed 
the basis of many amusing jokes in the Edison 
laboratory. The " boys " were not slow to find out 
that the matrix, after having been used to record one 
conversation or poem, as the case might be, would 
also admit of another being superinduced, the two 
being reported in a very jumbling manner. In this 



JOKES ON THE PHONOGRAPH 157 

way a lot of fun was obtained. On one occasion the 
affecting words of the first verse of " Bingen on the 
Rhine " came out as follows : — 

"A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers, 
' Oh, shut up ! Oh, bag your head ! ' 
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was 

* Oh, give us a rest ! ' 

lack of woman's tears. 

* Dry up ! ' 

But a comrade stood beside him while his life 

* Oh, what are you giving us ? Oh,' 

blood ebbed away, 
' Cheese it ! ' 
And bent with pitying glances to hear what he 
'Oh, you can't read poetry ! Let' 

might say. 
'up!' 
The dying soldier faltered, and he took that com- 
' Police ! PoHce ! Po-' 

rade's hand, 
'lice!' 
And he said, ' I shall never see ray own, my 
' Oh, put him out ! Oh, cork ' 

'native land.' 
'yourself!'" 

Mr. Edison enjoyed these phonographic liberties 
and laughed like a schoolboy. 

The inventor himself was not slow to have his joke 
with the phonograph, and once hid a machine in a 
guest's room. Just as his friend was about to get 
into bed a sepulchral voice exclaimed, " Eleven 
o'clock, one hour more ! " The visitor sat up for some 
time in anything but a peaceful frame of mind, but 
as nothing further happened he composed his nerves 
and lay down again. But sleep refused to visit his 
eyelids. He lay awake wondering what the end of 
the hour was to bring when the midnight chime 
sounded, and a second voice, deeper and more 
sepulchral than the first, groaned out, "Twelve 
o'clock, prepare to die ! " This was a little too much 



IS8 THE PHONOGRAPH 

for the astonished guest, who leaped out of bed, 
opened the door, and dashed into the landing, where 
he was confronted by the inventor, who was holding 
his sides with suppressed laughter. The mystery- 
was explained and the guest returned to his bed, 
much relieved, if somewhat abashed, that all his 
fright had been caused by a phonograph. 

Many interesting experiments were made with the 
phonograph, and it was soon found that by reversing 
the machinery while working the most remarkable 
sound effects could be produced. One writer on the 
subject says : " It is impossible for the human voice 
to be so manipulated as to produce sounds exactly 
backwards. Even with the letter ' A,' which is one 
of the simplest sounds made by the voice, the 
articulation cannot be reversed. At the first thought 
it would appear that ' A ' is ' A ' no matter how it is 
said, backwards, or forwards, or sideways, but the 
phonograph shows this to be a mistake. The little 
intonation that follows the first sharp sound of the 
letter is scarcely noticeable when spoken, but when 
the phonograph is reversed it seems that it is a most 
important part of the sound. It is as though the 
phonograph were trying to say ' ear,' but could not 
quite make it. The simplest sounds, such as the 
alphabet or counting from i to lo, are as confusing 
as Greek, and a complete sentence is worse than 
unintelligible. Musical sounds are reversed in the 
same way, and the intonation of a banjo makes that 
instrument sound like a church organ, while piano 
music would be thought to come from a harmonium 
by nine out of ten musicians. Such familiar pieces 
as ' Home, Sweet Home,' * God save the King,' and 
the like lose their indentity completely. In some 
cases music that is entirely new and very sweet is 



A "PRIVATE VIEW" 159 

produced by the reversing process. This opens a 
new field for composers, as they can take ideas from 
a reversed phonograph without being accused of 
plagiarism." 

The first public exhibition of the phonograph took 
place in England at the Crystal Palace in 1888, but 
prior to that a " private view " was given at Norwood 
in the presence of a distinguished gathering, including 
Mr. Gladstone, Sir Morel Mackenzie, the Earl of 
Aberdeen, Lord Rowton, Sir John Fowler, Sir 
William Hunter, and others equally noted. The 
entertainment consisted of various musical items 
specially chosen to display the phonograph's re- 
markable capabilities, a message from Edison, an 
"Address" to the London Press from the phono- 
graph itself, and a " Salutation," also supposed to 
have originated with the " talking machine." Mr. 
Edison's message was in the form of a private 
phonographic letter addressed to his agent, but 
nevertheless it was listened to by those present 
with greater interest than the songs or instrumental 
pieces which had preceded it. As this was the first 
letter in the form of a phonogram ever made by 
Mr. Edison we cannot refrain from quoting it. The 
following is an exact transcript : — 

"Ahem! In My Laboratory in Orange, 

New Jersey. 

'^June 16, 1888, 3 o'clock, a.m. 
" Friend Gouraud,— Ahem ! This is my first 
mailing phonogram. It will go to you in the regular 
United States mail from New York via Southampton, 
North German Lloyd steamer Eider. I send you 
by Mr. Hamilton a new phonograph, the first one 
of the new model which has just left my hands. 



i6o THE PHONOGRAPH 

"It has been put together very hurriedly, and is 
not finished, as you will see. I have sent you a 
quantity of experimental phonogram blanks, so that 
you can talk back to me. I will send you phono- 
grams of talk and music by every mail leaving here 
until we get the best thing for the purpose of 
mailing. 

" Mrs. Edison and the baby are doing well. The 
baby's articulation is quite loud enough, but a trifle 
indistinct ; it can be improved, but is not bad for a 
first experiment. 

" With kind regards, 

" Yours, 

" Edison." 

The greetings of the phonograph itself were in 
poetry as well as prose. The " Address " to the 
London Press was given out in a clear, distinct voice 
as follows : — 

" Gentlemen, — In the name of Edison, to whose 
rare genius, incomparable patience, and indefatigible 
industry I owe my being, I greet you. I thank you 
for the honour you do me by your presence here 
to-day. My only regret is that my master is not 
here to meet you in the flesh as he is in the voice. 
But in his absence I should be failing in my duty, as 
well as in my pleasure, did I not take this, my first 
opportunity, to thank you and all the Press of the 
great city of London, both present and absent, for 
the generous and flattering reception with which my 
coming to the Mother Country has been heralded by 
you to the world." 

The " Phonograph's Salutation " was composed 
and spoken into the machine by the Rev. Horatius 



GLADSTONE'S VOICE ASKED FOR i6i 

Nelson Powers, D.D., of Piermont, on the Hudson. 
The poem is said to have received the commendations 
of Mr. Gladstone himself: — 

"THE PHONOGRAPH'S SALUTATION. 

" I seize the palpitating air, I hoard 

Music and speech. All lips that breathe are mine, 
I speak, the inviolable word. 
Authenticates its origin and sign. 

I am a tomb, a Paradise, a shrine, 

An angel, prophet, slave, immortal friend ; 

My living records, in their native tone. 
Convict the knave, and disputations end. 

In me are souls embalmed. I am an ear. 

Flawless as truth, and truth's own tongue am I. 

I am a resurrection ; men may hear 
The quick and dead converse, as I reply. 

Hail ! English shores, and homes, and marts of peace. 
New trophies, Gouraud, yet are to be won. 

May sweetness, light, and brotherhood increase ; 
I am the latest born of Edison." 

Mr. Edison was particularly anxious to obtain a 
record of Mr. Gladstone's voice, and had given his 
agent strict injunctions before leaving America to 
ask the statesman to send him a phonographic 
message. At this " private view " the request was 
made, and Mr. Gladstone at once consented. The 
phonograph was adjusted, and into the receiver the 
late Premier spoke these words, addressed to Mr. 
Edison : " I am profoundly indebted to you for, not 
the entertainment only, but the instruction and the 
marvels of one of the most remarkable evenings 
which it has been my privilege to enjoy. Your great 
country is leading the way in the important work 
of invention. Heartily do we wish it well ; and to 
you, as one of its greatest celebrities, allow me 
to offer my hearty good wishes and earnest prayers 

12 



i62 THE PHONOGRAPH 

that you may long live to witness its triumphs in 
all that appertains to the well-being of mankind. — 
Gladstone." 

Edison's anxiety to obtain a record of Mr. Glad- 
stone's voice immediately became known, and nearly 
every paper in the country commented on the in- 
ventor's choice, the majority declaring that, with his 
usual marvellous discrimination, he had selected the 
"greatest voice in the Queen's domains." The 
incident inspired many poems, the best of which, 
perhaps, appeared in the London Globe. It is 
worthy of being recalled : — 

"SEND ME MR. GLADSTONE'S VOICE. 

"Send the secret, send it on, 
To the land of Washington ; 
Ere the profit others make, 
Send it me for Humbug's sake. 
All the electric box of tricks, 
How to split a hair in six ; 
How to patch a tattered lie, 
Facts forget and deeds deny. 
Send me, agent of my choice, 
' Send me Mr. Gladstone's voice ! ' 

By those accents which surpass 

E'en the best of Yankee brass ; 

By those words which something plain, 

Film with fog the brightest brain ; 

By the stone on Blarney's hill, 

By the ghost of Mandeville, 

By distinctions, false and fine. 

By humanely cropt-tailed kine, 

By my balance-sheet rejoice, 

* Send me Mr. Gladstone's voice ! ' " 

The phonogram made by Mr. Gladstone was but 
the first of many which subsequently helped to form 
a wonderful collection of " voices of the great " now 
in the "Wizard's" possession at Llewellyn Park. The 
collection includes records made by Bismarck, Tenny- 



AS A "PRAYING MACHINE" 163 

son, Beecher, Browning, and many other famous men 
living at the time of the perfecting of the phono- 
graph. Years after Gladstone had " talked back," 
as Edison termed it, the explorer Stanley and his 
wife visited the inventor's laboratory at Orange, and 
while listening to the phonograph Mrs. Stanley said 
to Edison, " Whose voice, of all the great men of the 
past, would you like best to recall and register ? " 
The question had never been put to Edison before, 
and he pondered it for some time. Then, in tones 
which showed clearly that he had fully made up his 
mind, he replied, " Napoleon's." The visitors, some- 
what surprised, suggested that in past centuries 
there were voices of other men greater than 
Napoleon. The argument waxed warm, but Edison 
never wavered in his choice. Napoleon's was the 
voice he wanted to hear most, and for it he was 
willing to barter the entire collection of records 
then in his possession. 

The phonograph has made its way into strange 
lands, and there are now probably few places on the 
globe where its voice has not been heard. " In 1897," 
says a writer, "it appeared, for the first time, in 
Lhassa, Thibet, the religious capital of the Buddhist 
faith. To this ancient town no European or other 
man than a Buddhist is supposed to be allowed to 
penetrate, though, as a matter of fact, some Euro- 
peans have been there and returned safe and sound. 
Travellers of the Buddhist faith may visit Lhassa if 
they are under no suspicion of being emissaries of 
the Christians. Among such travellers was a certain 
Burmese merchant, who, familiar with the resources of 
civilisation, took with him, to show the Grand Lama, 
or sacred and miraculously appointed Head of the 
Buddhist Church, an Edison phonograph. This was 



i64 THE PHONOGRAPH 

a good idea on the part of the Burmese trader, for in 
the Buddhist cult great account is made of mechani- 
cally repeated prayers. Praying wheels to reel off 
written or printed prayers are employed, and it 
struck the merchant that if he could introduce a 
machine which would actually repeat the prayers 
aloud he might make a fortune in supplying the 
apparatus. 

"He succeeded in getting the Grand or Dalai Lama 
and the dignitaries that surround him to inspect the 
phonograph, and as he had read into it a chapter 
of the sacred writings of the Buddhists, he was able 
to make it repeat this chapter aloud, to the great 
astonishment of the Grand Lama, who thought he 
was witnessing a miracle. The merchant asked 
the Dalai Lama to speak into the machine, and 
he did so, declaiming the beautiful prayer called 
* Om mani padme cum,' or 'Jewel in the lotus.' 
Then the cylinder being put in place the phonograph 
repeated the prayer in the Dalai Lama's voice, to the 
stupefaction and great edification of all the auditors. 
For many days thereafter the phonograph was kept 
busy with this and other utterances holy to the 
Buddhists, and now the phonograph has taken its 
place as the favourite ' praying machine ' of Lhassa." 

In Russia the phonograph did not receive quite so 
hearty a welcome, and it was some time before it was 
looked upon with anything like favour by the Russian 
Government. Even to-day all records have first 
to be submitted to the " Press Censor " before they 
can be enjoyed by the public, and it is a serious 
offence to have in one's possession a cylinder which 
has not been inspected by the censor. Ten years ago 
in the pavilion of the public gardens in Tagonrog the 
machine was exhibited for the first time and attracted 



RUSSIA AND THE PHONOGRAPH 165 

large crowds. It played and sang and laughed for 
some time undisturbed, until a police officer heard the 
machine reciting one of Kirloff's famous fables, but 
with some variations of the original text. The officer 
got suspicious, and, not trusting to his memory, he 
ran at once and got Kirloff's book, and came again to 
listen to the phonograph's version of the fable. To his 
horror he found the fable reproduced not at all as it 
was passed by the censorship more than half a cen- 
tury ago. An alarm was raised at once, the higher 
local authorities communicated with, and the manager 
of the pavilion was called upon to explain the con- 
duct of that " speaking mechanical beast." All the 
poor manager could do was to open the mysterious 
inside of the criminal machine, and hand over to the 
authorities the indiscreet cylinder which threatened 
to tell the peaceful inhabitants so many undesirable 
things. But the arrest of the chief criminal was con- 
sidered insufficient, as it could not have acted without 
a human accomplice, and so the poor manager was 
hauled to court, sentenced to three months' imprison- 
ment, a heavy fine, and the forfeiture of his phono- 
graph, which was forthwith smashed to pieces by the 
sensitive officials. 

The phonograph has been employed for many 
queer purposes, perhaps the queerest being to assist 
a certain American professor in his study of the 
language of cats. This gentlemen interested himself 
many years ago — together with one or two others — 
in the Simian language, but ultimately abandoned the 
problem of interpreting " monkey talk " in order to 
find out what a cat means when it stands on the back 
fence at night and emits those blood-curdling cries 
which make householders so reckless regarding their 
personal property. 



i66 THE PHONOGRAPH 

" It is not easy," said this gentleman to the writer, 
"to secure good records of cat language, and, 
in fact, I have waited night after night in my 
backyard for the purpose only to be disappointed. 
It is, of course, necessary to place the phonograph 
pretty near the cats' rendezvous in order to bottle 
up their voices, and it is seldom that felines are so 
absorbed with their musical efforts as to become 
oblivious to their surroundings. One record took 
me several nights to secure, and the reason that I 
did finally succeed was almost due to an accident. 
These particular cats were known for a mile around, 
and I do not suppose there was any one occupying a 
room looking on the back who had not voluntarily 
lost property in a vain endeavour to break up their 
musical evenings. But the cats seemed to lead 
charmed lives, and the manner in which they dodged 
missiles and at the same time continued singing was 
marvellous. But having made up my mind to secure 
a record of their voices, I crept into a dark corner of 
my yard one night and awaited their coming. For 
four evenings in succession they had been tuning up 
just below my window, and whether they had got 
wind that I was there with the phonograph and felt 
shy in consequence I don't know, but they never 
showed up that night, though I could hear them half- 
way down the block giving No. 19 a serenade. 

" After waiting about three hours I was so cold that 
I packed up my machine and went to bed, but I had 
scarcely got between the sheets when I heard them 
below singing away as though their hardened hearts 
would burst. I slipped on a pair of trousers, grabbed 
the phonograph, opened the back door and crept out. 
They were on the top of the water-butt, and I was 
quietly making my way towards them when I fell 



RECORDING THE VOICES OF CATS 167 

over the india rubber plant and with an ear-splitting 

yell they disappeared. The next night and the next 

I had no better luck, and I was almost giving up in 

despair when a friend suggested that I should place 

the phonograph in the yard, run an electric wire from 

the motor into my room and await the cats' arrival 

comfortably in bed. That very night I tried the 

experiment. Placing the phonograph in a spot 

which appeared to be a favourite one with the cats 

(to judge by the queer things I used to pick up near 

it) I adjusted the horn, arranged the wire so that by 

pressing a button I could start the motor, and then 

returned to bed. I was just beginning to feel sleepy 

when they arrived. They must have taken their stand 

quite close to the phonograph, and it wasn't long 

before they began their choir practice. When they 

were fairly started I pressed the button and set the 

machinery in motion. The yowling became awful 

after a bit, and I was very much afraid that the 

missiles which began to fly would strike my machine, 

but fortunately they didn't, and when I thought I 

had secured a sufficient quantity of the cats' vocal 

powers I put on some clothes and brought in the 

phonograph. When I tested the record I found it 

an excellent one. I was exceptionally lucky in this 

instance, for a few nights later the cats completely 

and mysteriously disappeared. I am afraid that 

they finally fell victims to their art, and we shall 

never hear their voices again, save in the phonograph. 

" I have, by the aid of Mr. Edison's invention, 

secured records of cats purring, cats in pain (a 

wounded or sick cat emits a peculiarly mournful 

sound quite different from its ordinary voice), cats 

spitting, &c. It is not difficult to secure the record 

of an angry cat's voice, for all you have to do is to 



i68 THE PHONOGRAPH 

hold the animal near the mouth of the phonograph 
and give its tail a twist. It will make plenty of noise 
then, but I never follow this method myself as I only 
wish to obtain records of the natural voice. Altogether 
I have secured twenty-five cat records, which repeat 
twenty-five different cries. I believe that when a 
cat yowls at night she has some object in view other 
than that of annoying the neighbours, though I know 
the majority of people wouldn't believe you if you said 
so. I am convinced there is a cat language just as 
there is a Simian language, and if I live long enough 
I am going to find out what it means. I feel I 
have a difficult task before me, but with the aid of the 
* talking machine ' I think I shall succeed. 

" Sometimes I place the phonograph near my own 
cat (a quiet respectable parlour animal that doesn't 
go out at night) and turn on a few nocturnal yowls 
for her especial benefit. When she hears the sounds 
of the other cats having a good time she races round 
the room in a remarkable manner and does her best 
to perform a feline harlequin act through the window. 
It is perfectly evident that she knows what is being 
said, and if she'd only respond in some intelligible way 
I should begin to understand. However, I am not 
without hope. 

" I have succeeded in determining by the aid of 
the phonograph the different emotions of cats, and 
can tell fairly accurately which is the cry of fear, of 
delight, of contempt, of amusement, of affection, &c. 
I can also tell the peculiar cry a cat makes when he 
or she wishes to attract a friend's attention, and also 
the sound of warning on the approach of an emeny. 
In a short time I intend to give a serious lecture on 
the Feline Language illustrated with cat cries on the 
phonograph. People will laugh, of course, but I hope in 



QUEER USES FOR PHONOGRAPH 169 

the end that they will come to believe with me that even 
cats have a language of their own, and one which, if 
we study sufficiently, we shall some day understand." 

As a matter of fact, the phonograph has been put 
to queerer uses than Mr. Edison ever anticipated. 
Here is one case which greatly amused the inventor 
when he heard of it. About two years ago in one 
of the busiest parts of London, where almost the 
entire road is taken up with costers' barrows, Edison's 
invention played an important part in helping the 
proprietor of a big stand to dispose of his entire 
stock of "greens." 

Around the well-filled barrow a crowd of hilarious 
buyers and idlers congregated, while one could 
distinctly hear above the general clamour a voice 
in coster accents declaring that " termarters " were 
" tuppence a pahnd " and " green peas fippence the 
'alf peck." Under ordinary circumstances, of course, 
this information would not have attracted more 
than the usual number of Saturday night buyers 
but the reason of the jostling crowd became clear 
when it was observed that the voice proceeded 
apparently from the very midst of the vegetables, 
while the owner of the cart, a delicate, weak-looking 
man, stood quietly by attending to his customers' 
wants without saying a word. 

When asked to explain the meaning of this strange 
affair the coster replied in husky tones that some 
months ago he had almost entirely lost his voice 
through an attack of fever, and was subsequently in 
great danger of also losing his trade through being 
unable to announce the quality and price of his goods 
in tones equal to those of his competitors, when a 
friend suggested that he should engage the services 
of a phonograph to discharge that duty for him. 



170 THE PHONOGRAPH 

The idea was a good one, and the coster promptly 
adopted it with the most satisfactory results, the 
" talking machine " generally enabling him to sell 
out his entire stock while his rivals were still making 
the night-air hideous with their vocal efforts to 
attract customers. The records were made for him 
by a friendly coster whose voice was the pride and 
admiration of the entire " push-cart " community. 

Mr. Frank D. Millet, and other artists, invariably 
make use of the phonograph while painting a portrait, 
as they declare that it helps to banish the bored look 
which a subject usually assumes when sitting for any 
length of time. In the case of children especially 
they find that the little one is able to sit much 
longer without becoming restless or fatigued if 
the phonograph is turning out melodies or funny 
speeches. The smile becomes natural and the 
expression interested — a state of things which, under 
ordinary circumstances, is sometimes impossible to 
obtain. 

Many other amusing, interesting, or remarkable 
incidents in connection with the phonograph might 
be related were it not that their recital would possibly 
prove tedious, for so accustomed have we become to 
the " talking machine," and so true is it that familiarity 
breeds contempt that it is now difficult to understand 
the tremendous sensation it created twenty years and 
more ago. The rising generation who have always 
had the phonograph with them cannot be expected 
to regard it as so great a wonder as do those who 
have followed its development from its inception, but, 
nevertheless, even in the dim future, it will probably 
still remain one of the most marvellous inventions of 
the nineteenth century. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE KINETOSCOPE, MAGNETIC ORE SEPARATOR, ETC. 

IT was during the year 1887 that Mr. Edison 
invented the " Kinetoscope," or moving picture 
machine. The idea was not an original one, nor 
does Mr. Edison claim it to have been, but frankly 
states that it was suggested to him by that inte- 
resting little instrument called the Zoetrope. Mr. 
Edison had known this toy for many years, and after 
he had invented the phonograph he argued that it 
should be possible to make a machine " which would 
do for the eye what the phonograph does for the 
ear." Later, when the kinetoscope was perfected, 
he declared that it would be comparatively easy to 
combine the two inventions, and with their aid give 
an entire opera on the stage of a theatre — the acting 
and singing being supplied entirely by the kineto- 
scope and phonograph. During the spring of 1907 
the writer questioned Mr. Edison on the subject, and 
he replied : 

" The time is coming when the moving picture and 
the phonograph will be combined so naturally that 
we will be able to show a trumpeter or any other 
musician so life-like in appearance that when he puts 
his instrument to his lips it will be impossible for any 

one to say positively that it is not the living man 

171 



^ 



172 THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

himself who is playing. I look forward to the day 
when we shall give grand opera in so realistic a 
manner that the critics themselves will be deceived. 
We are working on these lines now, and though the 
difficulties are great we shall overcome them by 
and by." 

The invention of the kinetoscope took Mr. Edison 
into a realm of science into which he had not 
previously penetrated — that of photography. Up 
to the time when the idea of the kinetoscope first 
occurred to him he had never taken a snapshot, 
developed a plate, or, in fact, touched a camera. But 
he soon saw that if he was to have any success with 
his new enterprise he must study the subject of 
photography from A to Z, and with his customary 
enthusiasm he threw himself at once into the work 
of mastering the art. He realised that the pictures, 
to successfully indicate natural movements when 
thrown on a screen, would have to be taken with 
extraordinary celerity — from forty to sixty a second, 
in fact. By this means only would the eye be 
unable to detect the change from one position to the 
other. 

Edison endeavoured to find plates (films) which 
would be quick enough to do this, and discovered that 
there were none in existence. Thereupon he opened 
a photographic laboratory and by innumerable 
experiments succeeded in making films sufficiently 
quick for his purpose. He learned all there was to 
learn regarding the taking, developing, printing, and 
toning of negatives, and soon began to make dis- 
coveries which were of inestimable benefit to him in 
the perfecting of the kinetoscope. In this work Mr. 
Edison had the assistance of Mr. W. K. L. Dickson, 
who laboured unceasingly with his chief in the 



PHOTOGRAPHING A SNEEZE 173 

development of the machine. The two men worked 
together early and late, and thousands of experiments 
were made before the results satisfied them. 

From the very first, of course, it was necessary 
that the photographs should be taken on strips of 
film, and literally miles of this sensitive material 
were exposed for the purpose of obtaining interesting 
subjects for the kinetoscope. Every sort of incident 
was photographed, and the assistants in the laboratory 
were called upon to go through all kinds of " turns " 
(or " stunts," as they called them) for the benefit of 
the kinetoscope. Mr. Fred Ott, who was known to 
occasionally indulge in the luxury of an ear-splitting 
sneeze, was requested to give an illustration of his 
famous performance before the moving picture 
camera. He protested at first but was compelled 
to yield, and by some means or other known only to 
himself was able to go through all the grimaces of a 
real, bond-fide sneeze while the camera clicked away 
at the rate of fifty pictures to the second. Boys in 
the laboratory were told to turn somersaults, stand 
on their heads, play leap-frog, and perform other 
manoeuvres supposed to be dear to youth, while 
various members of Mr. Edison's staff were " taken " 
busily engaged experimenting. When these pictures 
were thrown on to the screen they caused the liveliest 
interest and amusement. Mr. Edison himself was 
asked to give "sittings," but declined. Then when 
the machine came nearer to being the perfected thing 
it is to-day a stage was put up in the Orange labora- 
tory and various celebrated dancers came down from 
New York — Miss Loie Fuller among the number — 
and rehearsed their dances before the kinetoscope. 
All this, of course, cost a good deal of money, and it 
is more than probable that this invention gobbled up 



174 THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

at least a hundred thousand dollars before it could 
be considered a commercial success. 

Later on Mr. Dickson obtained special permission 
to make some moving pictures of Pope Leo XI 1 1., 
on which occasion he took no fewer than 17,000 
photographs. " It was only by great diplomacy," 
said Mr. Dickson afterwards, " that I obtained the 
necessary permission, and it was a good deal due to 
the kindness of Count Pecci, the Pope's nephew, that 
I succeeded. And after I had entered the Vatican 
and commenced ' operations ' I was much afraid that 
the Pope would send out word that he was too 
fatigued to appear. True he had given me an 
appointment, but I imagined that indisposition, or 
the weather, or a dozen unlooked-for events would 
cause a postponement. But I was mistaken. His 
Holiness had set a date in April, and — kept it. I 
made 17,000 photographs during that and subsequent 
days, and all the time the Pope was kindness itself. 
I and my assistant had to dress in black, and before 
we commenced the work of photographing his 
Holiness we were drilled in various formalities which 
had to be observed. The Pope himself was ex- 
tremely interested in everything, and I had to 
explain the whole process to him. 

" The first series of pictures were made while the 
Pontiff was on his way to the Sistine Chapel, being 
driven thither in his carriage. I explained to him 
that in order to obtain good results it would be 
necessary to have the hood down, and he cheer- 
fully consented to its being lowered. He held 
an umbrella over his head, for the sun was hot, 
but this he closed as soon as I began to make the 
pictures. Another series of photographs showed the 
Pope, with uplifted finger, bestowing the Apostolic 



SENSATIONS IN MOVING PICTURES 175 

benediction on an imaginary crowd, while a third 
depicted him walking in the Vatican grounds. The 
Pope afterwards witnessed many of these moving 
pictures, and showed unbounded delight and wonder 
at the faithfulness of the reproductions. ' Now,' he 
said on this occasion, turning to Cardinal Rampolla, 
* I know how I look when I am blessing my 
people.' " 

During these days when rumour was busy with 
the "sensations" to be depicted by means of the 
kinetoscope, an announcement appeared in a great 
number of American papers to the effect that Mr. 
Edison had permitted a bond-fide prize fight to take 
place in his laboratory for a series of moving pictures, 
the pugilists being the noted Jim Corbett and a 
Jersyman. One-ounce gloves were used, it was 
stated, and the prize was a purse of five thousand 
dollars. The following account subsequently ap- 
peared in a New York paper and was widely copied, 
much to the astonishment of Mr. Edison and his staff: 

" A Prize Fight for a $S,ooo purse and a genuine 
knock-out in the laboratory of America's greatest 
electrician, Thomas Alva Edison ! In the State of 
New Jersey, in broad daylight, the Majesty of the 
Law being up a tree at the time. It was all, we are 
told, in the interest of the kinetoscope. The kineto- 
scope, by the way, is an instrument for illustrating 
the production of kinematic curves by the combina- 
tion of circular movements of different radii. Mr. 
Corbett being known to carry with him a fine assort- 
ment of these curves and movements of all essential 
radii, it only remained to pick a Jersyman to practice 
on, set the kinetoscope ahumming, and there you are. 

" One of Gentleman Jim's upper cuts can advance 
science more in the fraction of a second by the humble 



176 THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

aid of the kinetoscope than the Association for the 
Advancement of Science can shove it along in a 
century. Hail the new method of scientific research ! 
It raises the now ex-pugilist and ex-histrion to the 
grand degree of savant. It also opens up a needed 
field of usefulness to Jersymen. We congratulate 
Edison, or whoever is tied up with the lightning 
photographic machine, on his enterprise. We don't 
just see why it was necesary to put up $S,CXX) for the 
job, but we are not scientists any how. But say ! It 
was dead wrong to pull off such a mill with only 
fifteen people around the ropes to see it ! " 

This humorous announcement had the good 
effect of drawing a letter of denial from a gentleman 
who knew the facts, and which appeared in the New 
York press the following day, and is here quoted : — 

" Sir, — My business as a journalist connected with 
two New Jersey daily papers and two electrical 
journals enables me to give you a few facts about the 
alleged prize fight in Thomas Alva Edison's labora- 
tory in Orange, NJ. Mr. Edison, with whom I have 
been connected in electrical industries, was not present 
when the meeting between Corbett and the Trenton 
boxer took place in the presence of the young man 
who manages the kinetoscope business. Edison is 
a humane and gentle man who never saw a prize 
fight, nor would he permit one to be fought on his 
premises where his family and friends go to and fro 
all day in the laboratory, which is open to those 
who reside in the vicinity. 

" I have known of cases where Mr. Edison has 
spent valuable time, taken from his scientific pursuits, 
to act as peacemaker between quarrelsome workmen, 
and in every case the man who began fisticuffs was 



A PRIZE FIGHT ON KINETOSCOPE 177 

discharged. So fond of peace is Edison that he 
selects singing and whistling workmen, who are 
permitted to sing and whistle at work. Years ago in 
the old Newark factory he used to have a foreman 
who sang an excrutiatingly funny song about a man 
who spent his time whistling * Listen to the mocking 
bird/ until an unlucky day when a neighbour, made 
angry by the continued whistling, knocked the 
whistler's jaw away, but that only made the whistler 
whistle louder and with a doleful squeak with the jaw 
puckered out of shape. Edison used to have that 
song sung to the music of a fine church organ kept in 
the factory for the entertainment of his men. He 
discovered the coloured man who afterwards became 
famous as the * whistling coon,' and took him from a 
ferry boat to his factory to amuse his men, and after- 
wards put the whistling coon on the road to fortune. 

" Corbett did not receive any money for his ser- 
vices at the laboratory. He tendered his services, 
which consisted only of the most friendly * bout,' and 
presented twenty-five dollars to the Trenton man, 
who was not knocked out until later in the day, when 
John Barleycorn, a champion of the world, knocked 
him out in a Newark cafe. 

" Sluggers have avoided New Jersey since the 
memorable day when the Hon. Sam Collyer, of 
America, challenged the Rt. Hon. Fiddler Nearey, of 
Great Britain, to the fight for the championship of the 
world at the famous place where Hamilton and Burr 
fought a duel. Honours were easy between the com- 
batants during the ten minutes preceding the arrival 
of the majesty of the law in the shape of six New 
Jersey Dutchmen led by the Sheriff of Hudson 
County, who declared the fight off. The sluggers 
were tried and found guilty. Collyer had a fine 

13 



178 THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

war record and received a light sentence ol ten 
years ; the bold fiddler Nearey was sentenced to 
twenty years. That settled prize fighting in New 
Jersey, which I may say, in passing, is the very 
garden spot of America in which law and order, 
patriotism, science, and industry flourish apace like 
her melons, peaches, and cranberries, which are 
vastly better than the products raised by the descen- 
dants of the Pilgrim Fathers, who would have been 
$60 in pocket all around if they had headed the 
Mayflower for the mouth of the Raritan River and 
founded New Brunswick, N.J., instead of Plymouth. 
We suffer many things in New Jersey, notably the 
bumptiousness of New York and the ' nerve ' of 
Bostonians. These we can bear, but do not charge 
us with prize fights. 

" G. Wilfred Pearce." 

Since those days the kinetoscope has been accused 
of reproducing greater sensations than a prize fight 
— among other things the agonised contortions of 
a negro being burned at the stake — but these are 
merely " newspaper stories " which have originated in 
the brains of imaginative space writers. Of the many 
thousand series of moving pictures which have issued 
from the Edison laboratory there has not been a 
single instance of one calculated to produce a 
" sensation " in the generally accepted sense of the 
word. And the same thing may be said of Mr. 
Edison's phonographic records. 

Another invention on which Mr. Edison worked 
soon after he had conceived the idea of the kineto- 
scope was the magnetic ore separator — a means 
whereby the magnetic substances may be separated 
from the non-magnetic. The origin of this invention 



THE MAGNETIC ORE SEPARATOR 179 

is interesting. It is stated that Edison was one day 
walking along the sea coast when he came across a 
patch of black sand. Curious to know what it con- 
tained, he filled his pockets with it, and when he 
returned to the laboratory he poured 'it out on to 
the bench. As he did so, a workman stumbled 
against the table and dropped the big magnet he was 
carrying across the sand. When he picked it up 
again it was covered with tiny black grains, proving 
the sand to consist chiefly of metallic particles. 
Edison took the magnet in his own hands, and 
sitting there became lost in thought. His mind was 
busy with fresh ideas which the accidental dropping 
of the magnet had generated. He saw no reason 
why magnetic attraction should not be employed to 
separate the metal from low-grade ores, and there 
and then he commenced his experiments which 
ultimately gave birth to what is now known as 
the magnetic ore separator. 

For many years Edison struggled with the problem 
and finally brought it to such a state of perfection 
that, by his system, a piece of ore weighing a couple 
of tons may be crushed to powder, and the metal 
extracted by means of an electro-magnet. The 
method is an extremely simple one, the crushed ore 
being allowed to fall in a steady stream from a 
hopper past the electro-magnet which attracts the 
iron particles and causes them to curve away and fall 
into a bin under it. The non-magnetic substances, 
being uninfluenced by the magnet, fall straight and are 
collected in another bin placed directly beneath the 
hopper. 

In connection with this separation ot ores by mag- 
netic attraction, Edison had to invent a tremendous 
amount of machinery, which included crushers, 



i8o THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

pulverizers, conveyors, presses, &c., before the 
scheme was workable. Then he bought a big tract 
of land in Sussex County and commenced operations. 
A little town soon sprang up, which was called 
" Edison " after the founder, and about two hundred 
neat houses were erected. The work of quarrying and 
crushing the ore continued for several years, and Mr. 
Edison is said to have put something like ;^6oo,ooo 
into the venture, but the shipping facilities were 
bad, and ten years ago the works were shut down 
and the inhabitants began gradually to creep away, 
until to-day " Edison " is deserted. The magnetic 
ore separator is still regarded as the best and simplest 
method of separating iron from low-grade ores, and 
the system is carried on in many parts of the world. 
In Edison's case, however, it was one of those things 
which, while successful as an invention, was not so 
financially, and he therefore closed down the mine 
and turned his attention to other things more 
remunerative. No one lives at Edison now, and it 
is as lonely and silent as the " Deserted Village." 
Many of the buildings still stand, but they are 
falling quickly to decay, and the little houses where 
the miners and operators used to dwell, and which 
were lighted by electricity and contained all "modern 
conveniences," seem to regard one in mute protest 
against their abandonment. At one time " Edison " 
was the most up-to-date mining town in America, 
and people came for miles to see the magnetic ore 
separator, but when the works were closed down 
there was nothing there which would support a 
community, and so the inhabitants drifted away. 
A few hopeful ones remained behind and en- 
deavoured to eke out a living, but it was too 
strenuous an existence, and after a few months 



CONVERTING ROCK INTO CEMENT i8i 

they too fled. Edison never once revisited the 
little town named in his honour after finally turning 
his back upon it now nearly ten years ago. 

A far more prosperous undertaking is Edison's 
method of turning rock and limestone into cement. 
His works for this purpose are situated at Stewarts- 
ville, N.J., and cover close upon eight hundred acres 
of ground. A short description of Mr. Edison's 
methods in this line may not be without interest. 
The rock after blasting is picked up by ninety-ton 
vulcan steam shovels, which are the most powerful 
things of the kind in the world. One of these mighty 
"scoops" can pick up a six-ton piece of rock as 
though it were a walnut and handle it as freely as a 
child would a rubber ball. These giant pieces of 
stone are loaded on " skips ". and drawn by locomo- 
tives about a mile distant to the "crushers." In the 
crushing house are terrible looking rollers capable 
of breaking up a five-ton piece of rock as easily as a 
pair of nut crackers would smash a filbert. These rolls 
are five feet long and fifteen feet in circumference, each 
roller alone, without any of its appurtenances, weigh- 
ing twenty-five tons. They are made of chilled iron 
plates and rotate in opposite directions. The motors 
which work these rollers are enclosed in dust-proof 
chambers, for otherwise they would soon become 
clogged with the powdery particles which rise from 
the crushers like gigantic clouds. The rock is 
dumped into these crushers direct from the " skips " 
and some idea of the former's appetite may be 
gathered from the fact that they eat up no less than 
fifteen tons of material every four minutes. 

After passing through these giant rollers the 
rock is dropped into hoppers feeding a set of thirty- 
six inch rolls — so called because they are thirty-six 



i82 THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

inches long and thirty-six inches in diameter. These 
rolls break up the rock in pieces about the size of 
one's fist, after which it passes through a second and 
third set of crushers, finally emerging broken up in 
pieces of the size of lump sugar. The rock is now 
ready for the drying room. Here it is dropped upon 
grates heated by gases and shaken until thoroughly 
dried. Then it goes to the stockhouse — an immense 
building 500 feet long containing ten bins, each one 
capable of holding 1,500 tons. Six of these bins are 
used for the cement rock, three for carbonate of lime, 
and one for mixing. Mixing is absolutely necessary, 
for the rock never contains the same amount of lime, 
and in order to give satisfactory results the propor- 
tions must be "just so." 

The cement rock and the limestone are next taken 
to the storehouse, which contains two bins each with 
a capacity of sixty tons. Here the chemist's formula 
is kept and carefully followed by the mixers. So 
much limestone must go with so much rock. The 
quantities are weighed automatically by a process 
highly interesting to the visitor. Each bin (one 
containing limestone and the other rock) deposits 
so much of its contents into the scale, which is 
worked electrically so that when the right quantity has 
been dropped into the weighing pan further supply 
is instantly cut off by the scale beam closing an 
electrical circuit. The cement rock and limestone 
then pass through chutes into a feed roll which 
thoroughly mixes the two materials. After passing 
under chalk grinding rolls the mixture arrives at the 
summit of the " blower-house," from which it falls 
through grids. As it falls a current of air is passed 
through it, the fine dust being carried to a large settling 
chamber where it accumulates in miniature mountains 



MACHINERY INVENTED BY EDISON 183 

at the bottom. The coarser material which has 
defied the "blowers" is returned to the chalk crushers 
for further reduction. The pressure of these rollers 
varies from 14,000 to 18,000 pounds per square inch. 
The cement is finally passed through a 200-mesh 
screen, "bagged" and "barrelled" by machinery, and 
conveyed to the forwarding-houses. 

The roasters are 150 feet long, made of cast iron 
lined with fire-brick, and built in the form of huge 
cylindrical shells. On the outside they are nine feet 
in diameter and on the inside six feet. Each roaster 
can turn out 900 barrels of cement every twenty-four 
hours. As a rule the works are in action during the 
night as well as the day, and the great crushers 
revolve ceaselessly from year's end to year's end. 
Most of the machinery used in these cement works 
is the result of Mr. Edison's inventive mind, and 
there are a hundred other interesting facts connected 
with the making of Portland cement by his remark- 
able system which it is impossible to touch upon here. 
Mention, however, may be made of a wonderful elec- 
trical signalling apparatus recently erected whereby 
the manager in his office may communicate with the 
heads of the different departments without leaving his 
desk, while by means of an " annunciator " system a 
foreman can call a messenger at any time during the 
night or day. There is also a remarkable system of 
oiling whereby every part of the machinery is auto- 
matically lubricated. The oil passes continuously 
through the machinery, is collected (by gravity) in 
tanks, filtered, and again used. After filtration and 
re-filtration the oil is pumped into tanks situated at 
the top of each building, from which it again drops to 
the different parts of the machinery. The supply is 
regulated by means of needle valves. 



i84 THE KINETOSCOPE, ETC. 

Mr. Edison is also the originator of a novel method 
of building houses of solid concrete. He was some 
years working out the details of this scheme to his 
own satisfaction, but twelve months ago he completed 
his experiments and now it is possible to " build " a 
ten-room house in about four days. The simple 
method is as follows : a steel mould is made into 
which the concrete is pumped, allowed to harden, 
and the mould then removed. At present an entire 
house has not been made in one piece. The founda- 
tions, walls, floors, ceilings, &c., are made by pouring 
concrete into separate moulds and afterwards piecing 
them together. Even the window frames are tem- 
porary shells into which concrete is pumped. When 
these shells are removed they leave behind solid 
window frames which it will take centuries to 
weaken. The origin of Edison's idea is said 
to have been the increasing cost of brick and 
lumber. 

The time will most certainly come when whole 
houses will be turned out in one piece, though each 
part is now separately moulded. These metallic 
moulds may be ornate or plain as the fancy of the 
householder dictates, and it will be no dearer to have 
the latter than the former. It only requires some 
smart architects to draw up designs for a few houses 
of different patterns and of about the size to suit the 
family of the average mechanic. The moulds made for 
each part of the house may even be joined together 
before the concrete has been pumped in. If more 
convenient, then the parts may be made separately 
and joined together with cement afterwards. The 
concrete will dry in a few hours, though it is con- 
sidered better to leave the liquid material in the 
moulds for four days, when the latter may be removed 




Photo by Byron, Xac York. 
MR. EDISOX REPLYIXCr TO SOME PUZZLING QUESTIONS. 



Page 184. 



ONE HUNDRED POUND HOUSES 185 

with perfect confidence that a solid and almost 
bomb-proof house will remain behind. 

Moulds for a house of ten rooms would cost 
about five thousand pounds, but they could be 
used five hundred times if necessary, so that the charge 
of a hundred pounds for a dwel^'ng of the size 
mentioned would pay the builder very handsomely. 
This idea of erecting houses in moulds is a very 
simple and feasible one, and it seems strange that 
it should have occurred to no one until Edison 
suggested it. In America to-day many houses are 
being erected according to Mr, Edison's plans, and 
are fulfilling all that was expected of them. 



CHAPTER XII 

SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

MR. EDISON'S work as an inventor extends 
over a most varied field. In addition to his 
better-known patents, granted in connection with the 
development of the electric lamp, the phonograph, 
the telephone, ore-milling machinery, and storage- 
batteries, the inventions include typewriters, electric 
pens, vocal engines, addressing machines, methods of 
preserving fruit, cast-iron manufacture, wire-drawing, 
electric locomotives, moving-picture machines, the 
making of plate glass, compressed-air apparatus, and 
many other things. 

To describe these numerous inventions in detail 
would take up too great a part of this book, but a 
brief description of some of them is necessary in 
order to convey to the reader a faint idea of the 
tremendous scope of Mr. Edison's researches. He 
has been by far the most prolific inventor and 
patentee of any time, having filed more than twelve 
hundred applications in America alone, for which 
over eight hundred patents have so far been granted. 
For foreign patents in most of the countries of the 
world his applications number more than two thou- 
sand. Such a record as this is unique, yet because 
the public has come to regard Mr. Edison as a kind 
of favoured mortal to whom Nature generously 

i86 



EDISON'S ANALYTICAL MIND 187 

whispers her secrets^ the inventor scarcely receives 
that amount of credit for the work entailed to which 
he is entitled. 

The commonly accepted idea of Mr. Edison is that 
by brilliant flashes of intellect inventions spring fully 
developed from his brain, or that he has the singular 
good fortune to be the instrument whereby Nature 
communicates her discoveries. Neither of these 
views is correct. Mr. Edison draws a very broad 
line between " discovery " and " invention." In his 
parlance a discovery is a " scratch " — something that 
might be disclosed to any one, and for which he 
thinks little or no credit is due. Invention, on the 
other hand, is the result of that peculiar faculty which 
perceives the application of some phenomenon or 
action to a new use. As an inventor, therefore, Mr. 
Edison possesses two qualifications pre-eminently. 
First, the inventive faculty, or the special intuition 
by which the adaptability of some observed result to 
a useful end is presented ; and secondly, the physical 
energy and patience necessary for the investigation 
by which that result may be ascertained. 

Although capable of flashes of great genius, his 
mind is necessarily analytical, and when a problem 
is presented to his attention it may be safely pre- 
sumed that most of its solutions will be considered 
by him and the most successful selected. Notwith- 
standing this mental equipment, his success has 
depended very largely on his physical make-up, as 
well as upon a certain solidity of his nervous system 
that takes no account of fatigue or ennui. In other 
words, day after day, with only a few hours' sleep, he 
can devote himself enthusiastically to the investiga- 
tion of a single problem the very monotony of which 
would drive most men into nervous prostration. 



i88 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

In a recent argument in a suit on one of Mr. 
Edison's patents opposing counsel sought to show 
that Edison was more an inventor than a discoverer, 
and the remark made was entirely complimentary. 
Said the learned gentleman : " If your honour wished 
him to, Mr. Edison could go into a field of grass 
a mile square and select therefrom the most perfect 
blade t^'' The popular conception of Mr. Edison is 
that of a man who accomplishes startling results by 
instantaneous flashes of intellect. The real Edison 
is a man of indefatigable industry, who attains his 
ends by patient effort intelligently applied. 

On the subject of " scratches " but very few real 
discoveries have been made by him. In one of them 
experiments were being made in the early days with 
automatic telegraphs, where the effect of the current 
was to produce chemical changes in moving paper 
strips with various substances. In making these 
experiments Mr. Edison held in his hand a pen, 
through which the current passed, and which pressed 
upon the strip. It was found that, with some 
chemicals, the passage of the current increased the 
friction between the pen and the strip, so as to sub- 
ject the pen to slight pulls. Later, when experi- 
menting with the telephone, these earlier observances 
occurred to him, and as a result the " motograph," or 
"chalk telephone receiver," was invented, wherein 
the same phenomena take place. Although this 
work Mr. Edison regards as a " scratch," probably 
very few men would have had the inventive faculty 
to foresee that the original discovery could have been 
used for making a new telephone. 

At the Paris Exposition of 1889 the chief attrac- 
tion was the exhibition of Mr. Edison's leading 
inventions, which created an immense sensation. 



LUTHER STIERINGER 189 

The following year they were shown in the States, 
and visited by hundreds of thousands of individuals 
interested in the progress of invention. Each exhibit 
was accompanied by a card giving a short description 
of the invention, and there was also published a small 
descriptive catalogue or pamphlet, prepared by the 
late Luther Stieringer, friend and co-worker of Edison, 
and to this little work — copies of which are now very 
difficult to obtain — I am indebted for the succinct 
descriptions of some of the lesser known inventions of 
Mr. Edison. 

Luther Stieringer was with Mr. Edison in the early 
Menlo Park days, and worked almost as untiringly 
and energetically as the inventor himself He ulti- 
mately became famous in the electrical world through 
his development of the wiring system, and the illumi- 
nating effects which he obtained when the electric 
light was yet in its infancy will always be remem- 
bered in the history of the incandescent lamp. The 
lighting of the Omaha Exposition was carried out by 
Stieringer with such consummate skill, and the elec- 
trical effects were so striking, that a special medal 
was designed in his honour and presented to him as 
a small recognition of the success of his work. The 
illuminations of the Grand Court at the World's 
Fair, Chicago, were also placed in his hands, and 
again he proved in a remarkable way the possibilities 
of electric lighting. Mr. Stieringer owned the first 
electrolier ever made, and this was shown, among 
other interesting Edison exhibits, at the St. Louis 
Exposition of 1904. 

Luther Stieringer was one of Edison's staunchest 
admirers, and the inventor's capacity for work was a 
source of constant wonderment to him. He it was 
who on one occasion declared his belief that if Edison 



190 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

could have chosen his birthplace he would have 
located it in the planet Mars, so as to have secured 
the advantages of a day forty minutes longer than 
ours. It was with Mr. Edison's sanction that 
Stieringer prepared the pamphlet, already referred 
to, descriptive of those inventions which he knew so 
well, and the majority of which he had seen grow 
from crude beginnings to perfected entities. Stieringer 
was generally credited with having a " roving com- 
mission " from Edison, empowering him to investi- 
gate anything and everything which he considered 
might prove of use or interest to the inventor. Any 
scientific door which was double-locked or which 
bore the legend " No Admittance " immediately 
attracted Stieringer's attention, and he never rested 
night or day until he had opened it. Of the many 
men who gathered around Edison in the days when 
the brilliancy of his inventive genius began to be 
recognised Stieringer takes a high place, and his 
death was a very real loss to the scientific and 
electrical world. 

Mention has already been made of the fact that 
the motograph was invented at a time when Mr. 
Edison was experimenting with automatic telegraphs. 
Another invention which came to him about the 
same period was the electric pen. This was one of 
his most useful clerical devices, and its great success 
was soon proved by the number of imitations which 
immediately afterwards began to flood the market. 
The instrument, as originally conceived, was very 
simple in construction, consisting, as it did, of a 
hollow wooden tube, the size and shape of an ordi- 
nary penholder, fitted with a steel shaft. Attached 
to the head of the pen was a tiny motor communi- 
cating with the shaft, while a needle projected from 



THE ELECTRIC PEN 191 

the writing end of the instrument and performed the 
duties of a pen-point. To work the pen the minia- 
ture motor was attached to a battery by flexible 
wires, and when in operation the steel shaft vibrated 
at so great a speed that the needle, on being guided 
over the surface of a sheet of paper, perforated it. 
By means of this electric pen the stencil of a plan or 
letter was made, and then, with the help of a dupli- 
cating press and an inked roller, as many copies could 
be run off as were required. 

Soon after this novel pen made its appearance 
many so-called inventors attempted to better and 
cheapen it. Among these was a New Orleans man, 
who got up a pneumatic pen on the same principle, 
except that it was worked by air. Instead of the 
steel shaft a small tube was employed. The air set 
a little drumhead quivering in the top of the pen, and 
that moved the needle. The motor was in the form 
of a tiny bellows operated by clockwork. " It was 
all beautifully simple," said the luckless inventor 
some years later, " and I figured out that it could be 
sold for half the price of the electric machine. I 
believed I was on the eve of reaping a big harvest 
when Edison thought again, and calmly knocked me 
out by merely fastening a diminutive toothed wheel 
to the point of a pencil. When the pencil was moved 
over the paper the wheel naturally revolved, and the 
teeth cut the stencil. It cost about a dollar to make, 
and shelved both the electric and pneumatic pens in 
just one fell swoop. When I heard of Edison's 
improvement I couldn't understand why I hadn't 
thought of it myself, but inventions are mighty 
queer things, any way." 

The mimeograph, with which every city clerk is 
familiar, followed close on the heels of the electric 



192 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

pen. It was more economical, did not need any 
electric power, and yet was equally useful for mani- 
folding manuscript. The apparatus consisted of a 
steel plate, a sheet of sensitive paper, and a stylus. 
The paper was laid on the smooth plate, over which 
the stylus glided with the greatest ease, perforating 
the sensitive sheet. In this way a stencil was made 
from which any number of copies could be rolled off. 
By placing the stencil paper, backed with a piece of 
silk, in the typewriter, and removing the ribbon, the 
same result may be obtained for manifolding type- 
written matter. The mimeograph was immediately 
recognised as an indispensable piece of office furni- 
ture, and to-day it is to be found in thousands of 
business houses. 

As far back as 1885 Edison applied for a patent 
covering wireless telegraphy, and was allowed one in 
1 89 1, but he did not pursue his investigations in this 
direction with his customary zeal. He was content 
to give way to Marconi, for whom he has a very 
sincere admiration. Edison's " grasshopper tele- 
graph " was an invention whereby communication 
could be made between telegraphic stations and 
moving trains. The feature of this system was the 
absence of any special wire between or along the 
tracks. Electrical induction served to transfer the 
currents from the apparatus in the train to the ordinary 
Morse wires alongside the track, no other medium 
than the air being required to facilitate the transfer. 
The currents which were thus induced in the wires 
did not in any way interfere with the ordinary business 
which was being carried on over them. The apparatus 
on the train and at the stations along the line con- 
sisted of an ordinary battery, an induction coil with 
vibrator, a Morse key, and a pair of telephone receivers. 



THE GRASSHOPPER TELEGRAPH. 193 

By means of the induction coil the current from the 
battery was transformed into a rapidly alternating, 
highly penetrative current, capable of producing a 
similar current in neighbouring wires or apparatus. 
The effect was a continuous humming sound heard 
in the phonetic receivers, this being broken into the 
dots and dashes of the Morse system by means of 
the key. The roofs of the cars were all connected 
together and to the instruments, and these were con- 
nected to the earth through the car-wheels and track. 
By means of this simple and inexpensive system 
messages have been transmitted across an air space 
of 560 feet intervening between the wires and the 
cars. The " grasshopper telegraph " was, at one 
time, used on many of the long-distance trains of 
America, but it never became a very great commer- 
cial success, probably for the reason that few people 
find it necessary to send messages while travelling 
by rail — even in the States. In the perfecting of 
this invention Mr. Edison worked in co-operation 
with Mr. W. Wiley Smith, who therefore shares with 
the inventor the distinction of originating this unique 
form of telegraphy. 

While engaged in his acoustic researches, carried 
on in connection with the telephone, the idea occurred 
to Mr. Edison that it would not be difficult to con- 
struct an instrument whereby two persons at consider- 
able distance from each other might carry on a 
conversation without unduly straining their lungs. 
So he set to work and evolved the megaphone. 
To-day that instrument is still largely employed as a 
means of conveying sound to distant points, though 
its construction is somewhat different to what it was 
at the time of its invention. In those days " twin " 
funnels were employed, made either of metal or 

14 



194 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

wood, each funnel being from 6 to 8 feet in length, 
with a width from 30 to 36 inches at the mouths. 
These huge funnels ended in tiny apertures, which 
were provided with tubes, and which the operator 
placed in his ears. Between the funnels was a large 
speaking trumpet, and the whole apparatus was 
mounted on a substantial steel tripod. Remarkable 
results were obtained by using these megaphones, 
and two people provided with instruments were able 
to keep up a conversation at a distance of two miles 
without in any way raising their voices above the 
normal. The telephone has rendered the megaphone 
less useful than it might otherwise have proved, but 
it remains, nevertheless, one of Mr. Edison's most 
valuable inventions connected with acoustics. 

Another invention — more interesting, perhaps, than 
useful — also owes its being to experimental work 
connected with the telephone. This Mr. Edison called 
the " phonomotor," or " vocal engine." It consists of 
a mouthpiece and a diaphragm, to the centre of 
which is attached a brass rod carrying a steel pawl ; 
the pawl acts on a ratchet wheel with very fine teeth, 
mounted on a shaft carrying a flywheel, and driving 
a coloured disc by means of a belt or cord. The 
vibrations of the voice — which he had discovered 
were capable of developing considerable energy — in 
speaking or singing into the instrument, caused the 
pawl to impinge upon the teeth of the ratchet-wheel, 
producing a rapid rotation of the flywheel and coloured 
plate ; a continuous sound gives the flywheel such 
momentum that considerable force is needed to stop 
it. By means of this queer toy it is quite possible to 
bore a hole through a board or even saw wood. 

Two startling inventions in connection with 
astronomy and hydrography are the work of Mr. 



TASIMETER AND ODOROSCOPE 195 

Edison. These are, respectively, the tasimeter and 
the odoroscope. The former is an ingenious instru- 
ment in which the electrical resistance of carbon has 
been taken advantage of, as in many other of Mr. 
Edison's inventions. The name " tasimeter " is 
derived from the words meaning " extension " and 
" measure," because the effect is primarily to 
measure extension of any kind. The apparatus 
consists of a strip of hard rubber with pointed 
ends resting perpendicularly on a platinum plate 
beneath which is a carbon button, and below this 
another platinum plate. The two plates and the 
carbon button form part of an electric circuit 
containing a battery and a galvanometer. The 
hard rubber is exceedingly sensitive to heat ; the 
slightest degree of warmth imparted to it causes 
it to expand, thus increasing the pressure on the 
carbon button and producing a variation in the 
resistance of the circuit, which is, of course, 
immediately registered by the galvanometer. The 
instrument is so sensitive that with a delicate 
galvanometer the warmth of a person's hand at a 
distance of thirty feet affects it very considerably. 
In astronomical observations it has been used most 
successfully. On one occasion the heat of the rays 
of light from the star Arcturus was measured in a 
very satisfactory manner. 

The principle of the odorscope is similar to that of 
the tasimeter, but a strip of gelatine takes the place 
of the hard rubber. Besides being affected by heat, 
it is exceedingly sensitive to moisture, a few drops of 
water thrown on the floor of the room being sufficient 
to give a very decided indication on the galvanometer 
in circuit with the instrument. Barometers, hygro- 
meters, and similar instruments of great delicacy can 



196 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

be constructed on the principle of the odorscope, and 
it may be employed in determining the character or 
pressure of gases and vapour in which it is placed. 

Other inventions of Mr. Edison's — too technical 
for description in a work such as this — are the carbon 
rheostat, an instrument for altering the resistance of 
an electrical circuit ; the pressure or carbon relay, for 
the translation of signals of variable strengths from 
one circuit to another ; acoustic telegraph system, 
chemical telegraph, private line printers, printing tele- 
graphs, electro-magnets, rheotomes or circuit directors, 
telegraph calls and signalling apparatus, &c. 

Mr. Edison was the first to see how important it 
was that dynamos should be made with massive field- 
magnets. His first large steam dynamo was built at 
Menlo Park, and was used to supply the current for 
700 lamps. In 1881 he built a dynamo of a size 
which staggered the electrical world. It weighed 
twenty-seven tons, the armature being built of bars 
of copper instead of wire, which alone weighed six 
tons. It was exhibited at Paris, London, Milan, and 
New York, and created the greatest sensation. 

The pyro-magnetic motor, the pyro-magnetic 
generator, the microphone (called after him), the 
magnetic bridge (for testing the magnetic properties 
of iron), the electro-motograph, the motograph 
receiver, the etheroscope, the chalk battery, methods 
for preserving fruit in vacuo without cooking, vacuum 
pumps, the telephonograph, and the "dead beat" 
galvanometer (peculiar from the fact that it has no 
coils or magnetic needle) are a few more inventions 
for which Edison has been granted patents. It 
might here be mentioned that a single invention 
often carries with it scores of patents, and this is 
the case with several of Edison's conceptions. In 



QUEER INVENTIONS 197 

the line of phonographs, for instance, he has secured 
a hundred and one patents, on storage batteries 
twenty patents, on electric meters twenty patents, 
on telegraphs a hundred and forty-seven patents, on 
telephones thirty-two patents, on electric lights a 
hundred and sixty-nine patents, and on ore-milling 
machinery fifty- three patents. When it is remem- 
bered that an incandescent lamp consists simply of 
a carbon filament in an exhausted glass globe, the 
ingenuity in devising one hundred and sixty-nine 
different patentable modifications and improvements 
on such device appears really marvellous. 

Queer inventions have been ascribed to Edison 
from time to time, and the great electrician is of 
immense service to the imaginative American re- 
porter who finds himself hard up for a " good story." 
The conscienceless newspaper man will get hold of 
what he believes is a brilliant, if impracticable, idea, 
and which he knows would look well (with a few 
nightmare illustrations) in a Sunday newspaper, so 
he sets to work and proceeds to turn out something 
really startling. It is necessary, however, to father 
the " story " on some scientist, and who better known 
than Edison ? So the unblushing space-writer couples 
with his imaginings the name of the great inventor, 
feeling pretty safe in the thought that his victim, like 
royalty, is far too busy to contradict all the wonder- 
ful statements which are published about him. 

Some time ago, for example, an American paper 
came out with a startling story of how Edison had con- 
ceived a plan whereby torpedo-boats would henceforth 
be rendered useless in times of war. " The apparatus," 
said this sensation-loving journal, " is in the form of 
canisters of calcium carbide with a small quantity of 
calcium phosphide mixed in, to be placed in the 



198 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

scouting boats or fired into the water at a distance 
from a mortar. These canisters, being provided with 
buoyant chambers and water vents, would give off 
acetylene gas, and also spontaneously inflammable 
phosphoretted hydrogen, which would serve to ignite 
continuously the acetylene gas. The result would 
be powerful lights, very cheaply produced, in great 
numbers over an area of several square miles. Any 
torpedo-boat coming nearer than one mile of those 
lights would be thrown into silhouette, which, to the 
eye, would be at least fifty times more powerful than 
the small reflection from the light-absorbing surface 
of a torpedo-boat illuminated by the most powerful 
electric light. This is Edison's plan. It simply cuts 
the torpedo-boat out of naval warfare as an important 
factor." 

Many other queer inventions have been ascribed 
to Edison. At one time an enterprising newspaper, 
whose policy might be described as saffron-hued, for 
several months published an " interview " with the 
inventor weekly, ascribing to him such weird and 
wonderful things that he at last became really 
alarmed lest a lunacy commission should be ap- 
pointed to inquire into his sanity. Something had 
to be done, and the editor of the paper in question 
received an intimation that unless the series of 
" stories " came to an end legal proceedings would 
be taken. Being a wise man, the editor reflected 
that it was scarcely dignified to go to law over the 
matter, and the series of " interviews " came to an 
abrupt conclusion. Among other strange inventions 
which this newspaper ascribed to Edison was one to 
be used for melting snow as rapidly as it fell. The 
work was to be accomplished by the use of electric 
and sunlight reflectors. " This," said the newspaper 



EDISON WRITES TO THE PAPERS 199 

in question, " will make many a city boy, who has to 
shovel snow from the side-walk, very happy, but it 
will at the same time rob many a poor man of a 
meal that he would otherwise get for doing that 
work. The invention will have its greatest utility 
in clearing transcontinental railway tracks." 

These " interviews " called forth an angry letter 
from the inventor in 1898, addressed to a leading 
New York daily, of which the following is a copy : 

" Sir, — I wish to protest through the Sun against 
the many articles appearing in the sensational papers 
of New York from time to time purporting to be inter- 
views with me about wonderful inventions and dis- 
coveries made or to be made by myself Scarcely a 
single one is authentic, and the statements purporting 
to be made by me are the inventions of the reporter. 
The public are led from these articles to draw con- 
clusions just the opposite of the facts. I have never 
made it a practice to work on any line not purely 
practical and useful, and I especially desire it to be 
known, if you will permit me, that I have nothing to 
do with an article advertised to appear in one of the 
papers about Mars. 

" T. A. Edison." 

But the story which, perhaps, caused Mr. Edison 
the greatest amount of annoyance was one published 
half a dozen years ago. " I laugh at it now," said the 
inventor, " but at the time I did not think it quite so 
amusing. One of the ' boys ' (newspaper men) came 
down here one day, and not being able to see me or 
get any startling information from any of my asso- 
ciates, he went home, probably feeling somewhat 
aggrieved, and wrote up a story of his own invention . 



200 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

He declared, in a very lucid and descriptive way, 
that I was shortly bringing out a new and very in- 
genious shirt which would last the ordinary man 
twelve months or longer if he were economical. The 
front of the shirt, he declared, was made up of 365 
very thin layers of a certain fibrous material — the 
composition of which was known only to the inventor 
■ — and each morning that the wearer put the garment 
on, all he had to do to restore the front to its usual 
pristine spotlessness, was to tear off one of the ' layers,' 
when he would have practically a new shirt. The 
writer declared that I myself wore these shirts, and 
that I considered the invention the biggest thing 
I had yet accomplished. Well, the story was pub- 
lished in about five hundred papers in the States, and 
the queer part was that so many of the readers be- 
lieved the statements to be true. Every one seemed 
to hanker after possessing one of these shirts, and 
I soon began to receive requests for supplies varying 
from one to a hundred dozens from all parts of the 
country. At first I gave orders that a letter should 
be sent to these would-be buyers of the ' Edison 
shirt ' informing them that the story was untrue and 
that I hadn't tried my hand at patent clothing yet, 
but the letters continued to come in in such numbers 
that this soon became impossible. Many of the 
writers enclosed drafts and checks, and these, of 
course, had to be returned. Then the story got into 
the papers of other countries, and every race of 
people from Chinamen to South Africans, all seemed 
desirous of getting some of these shirts. Many 
writers begged that if I didn't sell the shirts myself 
would I inform them where they could be obtained. 
The idea, they were pleased to add, was a grand one, 
and they'd be happy if they could only get hold of 



INVENTION TO PREVENT OLD AGE 201 

a few. Did I want any agents to push the goods ? 
For more than a year orders for the ' Edison Patent 
Shirts ' poured in, until at last the public began to 
realise that it had been hoaxed and turned its atten- 
tion to something else. But it was a foolish story, 
and if I could have got hold of the young man who 
wrote it up, I guess he wouldn't have wanted a shirt 
or anything else on his back for a few weeks." 

Mr. Edison was once asked if he could not invent 
something to prevent people growing old. He 
laughed at the question, and declared that though 
he didn't think he could some one else might 
in the dim future. He referred to the sacrifice of 
animal life and the injection of serums to replace 
worn tissues. The interviewer published his remarks 
at length, with some additions, and even stated that 
it was the belief of Edison and others that old age 
was simply due to molecular physiological changes 
made in a certain direction. In other words, when 
we are enabled to reverse the motion of these mole- 
cules we can make each birthday reduce our age one 
year, or go backward or forward alternately as we 
wished. This novel idea, which in all probability 
had its origin more or less in the brain of the inter- 
viewer, called forth a good deal of interesting and 
amusing correspondence, and many poets waxed 
eloquent on the possibilities of " reversing molecules," 
one of the best poems being the following, by Joel 
Benton, which appeared in the pages of Judge : 

''EDISON AND THE NEW ROAD TO YOUTH. 

Oh, Where's the Morse or Edison, or any one to-day, 
Who'll tax his wits to stop our Hves from speeding so away ? 
If little things, molecular, are pushed on some down track, 
Tis said our youth and comehness will year by year 
come back. 



202 SOME LESSER INVENTIONS 

No more will hair-restorers from druggists' shelves be 

called, 
We'll merely turn the molecules round and clothe the 

spot that's bald ; 
Our wrinkles will their exit take and life will all be May, 
Instead of middle age or old, with hair of various grey. 

Old maids will not be dreadful, nor old bachelors forlorn, 
For they will turn the crank toward youth, nor care 

when they were born ; 
The lover will be privileged to make his courtship slow. 
And even wait Methuselah's time for his ' best girl ' to 

grow. 

The one who has a pile of debts it troubles him to pay 

Can have the frowning pay-day pushed some centuries 
away ; 

Of course the world will crowded be when Time gives 
such a truce, 

For every one's life then will be quite like the Wander- 
ing Jew's. 

But, still, I like the motion much — since I've enough 

to do 
To last me in my horoscope a century or two ; 
And so, if our shrewd Edison can change the molecule's 

track, 
I'm ready for his vehicle to take me swiftly back — 

Back to the summer swimming days, my boyhood's dear 

delight, 
Or when in winter time the hill I coasted out of sight ; 
Or else to that green callow time my first piece got in 

type. 

Or when for far-off Madeline my first love-pangs were 
ripe. 

By her is where the molecule's coach should halt and 

set me down 
If 'twere not for the reason that a cunning country 

clown, 
Just as my love was boiling in its first ecstatic whirl. 
Put in his claims so promptly that he carried off the 

girl- 
It is said that the medical pharmocopoeia owes to 
Edison the discovery of one of the drugs now used 
in the treatment of gout, viz., hydrate of tetra-ethyl 



A CURE FOR GOUT 203 

ammonium. The story of its discovery is thus 
related : 

" Mr. Edison met a friend one day, and on hearing 
that he was a great sufferer, and noting the swellings 
of his finger-joints, asked, with his usual curiosity : 

" ' What is the matter ? ' 

" ' Gout,' replied the sufferer. 

" * Well, but what is gout ? ' persisted Mr. Edison. 

" * Deposits of uric acid in the joints,' came the 
reply. 

" ' Why don't the doctors cure you ? ' asked Mr. 
Edison. 

" ' Because uric acid is insoluble,' he was told. 

" ' I don't believe it,' said Edison, and he straight- 
way journeyed to his laboratory, put forth innumer- 
able glass tumblers, and into them emptied some 
of every chemical which he possessed. Into each 
he let fall a few drops of uric acid and then awaited 
results. Investigation forty-eight hours later dis- 
closed that the uric acid had dissolved in two of the 
chemicals. One of these is used to-day in the treat- 
ment of gout diseases." 



CHAPTER XIII 

WAR MACHINES 

TEN or twelve years ago, when the Venezuelan 
matters came to a crisis, a discussion arose in 
America as to the capabilities of the country to 
defend herself in case of war. The Press was full 
of suggestions for self-defence from all kinds of 
people — from men expert in warfare and from others 
who, apparently, had never seen a gun. Many 
scientists and electricians whose opinions were con- 
sidered valuable were consulted, and among these 
was Mr. Edison. An interviewer called at the 
Orange laboratory one morning and plied the in- 
ventor with so many questions that Mr. Edison pro- 
ceeded to fill him up with an astounding number of 
electrical devices whereby America might protect 
herself from the invader. He had hundreds of 
original and startling ideas, and he handed them 
out as freely as a home missionary distributes tracts. 
Mr. Edison had some years before invented, in 
conjunction with Mr. W. Scot Sims, a submarine 
torpedo boat to be operated by electricity, and he 
first of all suggested that this deadly instrument of 
war would prove a machine of excellent use in case 
of trouble. In this invention — Mr. Edison's solitary 
contribution to those devices whose primary object 

is the destruction of life — the torpedo proper is sus- 

204 



ELECTRICITY AND WAR 205 

pended from a long float so as to be submerged a few- 
feet under water, and contains the electric motor for 
propulsion and steering, and the explosive charge. 
The torpedo is controlled from the shore or ship 
through an electric cable, which it pays out as it 
goes along, and all operations of varying the speed, 
reversing and steering, are effected by means of 
currents sent through the cable. Mr. Edison pointed 
out that this torpedo boat could be sent a couple of 
miles ahead of a man-of-war, and could be kept at 
that distance under absolute control ready to blow up 
anything within reach. 

Having referred to his torpedo boat, Mr. Edison 
next proceeded to discuss other ideas for the defence 
of the country which were then simmering through 
his brain. He declared that electricity would play a 
leading part in any war between America and another 
country, and it would be possible to keep an enemy 
very much at bay by merely using streams of water 
charged with electricity. From small forts occupied 
by a dozen men or less it would be easy to control 
the advance of the enemy, no matter in what numbers 
they might come. Each fort would be furnished 
with an alternating machine of 20,000 volts capacity, 
and it would require but one man to operate a stream 
of water connected with the deadly current and play 
on the enemy. Just as soon as the water struck an 
invader, or a group of invaders, the circuit would be 
complete, and the men would go down so quickly 
that they'd never know what had hit them. 

When once started on a description of this novel 
means of defence Mr. Edison himself became deeply 
interested, and, being a humane man, assured his 
interviewer, whose eyes were beginning to bulge, that 
the wholesale destruction might be modified and the 



2o6 WAR MACHINES 

current so reduced that those who felt its force would 
merely be stunned. It would all depend on the 
temper of the operator. If he felt in a stunning 
mood the enemy would be shocked only, but, on 
the other hand, if he saw that death was necessary 
he might turn on the full current. Supposing he 
decided that to stun was sufficient, then, after those 
who had escaped the deadly stream had retired, the 
occupants of the forts could go out and pick up 
the enemy and make them prisoners. Should the 
prisoners become so numerous that it was impossible 
to control them, however, they might be treated to 
another and a stronger dose of electrically charged 
water, and thus be permanently put out of the way 
of doing further damage. This was an alternative, 
however, which Mr. Edison, being tender-hearted, 
did not advocate. 

But the inventor had other ideas equally novel and 
effective. He had visions of an aerial torpedo boat 
which would fly over the ship of an enemy and drop 
a hundred pounds of dynamite down her hold. These 
birds of destruction would be furnished with a self- 
steering gear and a fuse timed to act so many 
minutes or hours after being cut loose from the 
ship. The cost of these aerial torpedo boats would 
not be great, and those who used them might well 
afford to send up a flight of a hundred or so if the 
result was the destruction of a five million dollar 
war vessel. 

The inventor then discussed other powers of 
destruction such as dynamite guns, &c., after which 
the interviewer went home and wrote an article 
which not only brought great joy to his countrymen, 
but attracted the attention of European powers. 
England took the statements somewhat seriously. 



ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS STARTLED 207 

and a leading provincial daily newspaper — it would 
be unkind to mention its name — published the 
following remarks in a " leader " : — 

" For the moment we are tempted to think that 
Mr. Edison must be mad, if there is any truth in the 
report which has appeared of an interview with that 
very wonderful man, in the course of which he spoke 
of the murderous inventions he has ready for the 
service of his country in the event of war with any 
other nation. We protest against Mr. Edison direct- 
ing his extraordinary inventive genius which God has 
given him into such channels. We would even give 
our hearty adhesion to the old sentiment, that all 
things are fair enough in love and war. But to 
attack an enemy with such ' resources of civilisation ' 
as those of which Mr. Edison speaks is not war, it is 
simply wholesale slaughter of a kind which would be 
intolerably wicked and cruel, and which no nation 
with any self-respect would permit to be exercised. 
Let Mr. Edison continue to direct his enormous 
talents into more peaceful channels for the benefit 
of a world which is heavily indebted to him already 
for his marvellous inventions. We do not say this 
because we fear for our soldiers. They have faced 
danger so bravely and in so many ways, and have 
held their lives as nought where the honour of old 
England has been concerned, that we do not doubt 
they would meet Edison's engines of destruction if 
they knew it was their duty. But the sentiment of 
the matter does not excuse the wickedness of the 
ideas attributed — we hope unjustly — to the greatest 
inventor of his time." 

Then the London papers took up the matter and 
discussed Mr. Edison's propositions in all seriousness. 
Lord Armstrong was appealed to by an excited 



208 WAR MACHINES 

correspondent, and received from the British inventor 
the following letter : — 

"Cragside, Rothbury, December 2^, 1895. 
"Dear Sir,— If the words attributed to Mr. 
Edison are correctly reported, which I greatly 
doubt, I must say that this great inventor is both 
hard to understand and extravagantly sanguine. 
Designs which exist only in idea are seldom of 
much account, and Mr. Edison would be more than 
human if his brain were capable of evolving matured 
inventions of astounding potency in war requiring 
no protracted trials to fit them for practical 
application. In such matters models and labora- 
tory experiments go for very little on this side of 
the Atlantic. Nothing short of trials on a scale 
of actual practice can be relied upon, and these, if 
made, would, from their nature, be incapable of 
concealment, so that the advantage of sole posses- 
sion would speedily vanish. Transcendent inven- 
tions, even when coming from an Edison, should 
always be received with incredulity in the absence 
of tangible proof, and Lord Salisbury is himself too 
much of an electrician to be moved from his serenity 
by any threats of wholesale electrical destruction 
which Mr. Edison in the fervour of his patriotism 
may have uttered." 

After that Mr. Labouchere's weekly came out 
with its inevitable poem, which was unkindly 
addressed to the " Menlo Park Munchausen." It 
might be mentioned that in their trip across the 
Atlantic Mr. Edison's remarks were reported to 
have been made " in case of war with England." 
The poem, which was widely copied in the American 
press, reads as follows : — 



"TRUTH'S" POEM TO EDISON 209 

"WAR MACHINES. 

"Come, Mr. T. A. Edison, 
We know how very potent Science is, 
But none the less we can but laugh 
At your reported new appliances — 
Those murderous designs of yours. 
For making which you've such facilities, 
And which you say you mean to use 
If there's an outbreak of hostilities. 

Those jets of lethal water, which 
It is your purpose then to pump on us ! 
Those fiery dragons, belching doom. 
Which at your bidding are to jump on us ! 
Those chains of which each link means death, 
And those infernal cars aerial. 
Which, if a button you but press, 
Will shatter all our war material ! 

And your four cannon joined in one. 
Which are to hurtle shells of dynamite — 
Such weapons might create a scare 
In Timbuctoo, and p'r'aps in China might. 
But over here you may be sure — 
You easily our words can verify — 
Such scientific * bugaboos ' 
The veriest tyro do not terrify. 

Now, as a fact, did you suppose 
That your inventions deleterious 
Would frighten us ? 'Twas but your joke ; 
Of course, you couldn't have been serious, 
When you such wondrous statements made, 
You but burlesqued, with much felicity, 
The startling tales which scientists 
Have told, of late, of electricity. 

You knew that there would be no war 
'Twixt nations of the same paternity ; 
And you that interviewer fooled 
And played upon his naive modernity. 
In short, for this Yule interview. 
With its assertions so inscrutable, 
The First of April would have been 
A date in all respects more suitable ! " 

France also took an interest in Mr. Edison's war 
inventions, and while England was discussing the 
proposed dynamite guns, aerial torpedoes, &c., a 

15 



210 WAR MACHINES 

Parisian paper made its appearance with the follow- 
ing skit, which imagines Mr. Edison in his laboratory 
hearing the news of a declaration of war between 
Great Britain and the United States. A young man, 
his assistant, rushes in, pale and out of breath, and 
exclaims to the great electrician : — 

" Oh, master, war is declared ! It is terrible ! " 

" Ah ! " says the master. " War declared, eh ? 
And where is the British army at this moment?" 

" Embarking, sir." 

" Embarking where ? " 

" At Liverpool." 

" At Liverpool — yes. Now, my friend, would you 
please join the ends of those two wires hanging there 
against the wall ? That is right. Now bring them to 
me. Good. Now be kind enough to press the button." 

The assistant, wondering and half-amused, presses 
the button. 

" Very well," says the inventor. " Now do you 
know what is taking place at Liverpool ? " 

" The British army is embarking, sir." 

The inventor pulls out his watch and glances at 
the time. " There is no British army," he says, curtly. 

" What ? " screams the assistant. 

" When you touched that button you destroyed it." 

" Oh, this is frightful ! " 

" It is not frightful at all. It is science. Now, 
every time a British expedition embarks at any 
port please come and tell me at once. Ten 
seconds afterwards it will simply be out of 
existence. That is all." 

" There does not seem to be any reason why 
America should be afraid of its enemies after this, sir?" 

" I am inclined to believe you," says the master, 
smiling slightly. " But in order to avoid further 



INVENTION TO DESTROY ENGLAND 211 

trouble, I think it would be best to destroy England 
altogether." 

" To — to destroy England, sir " 

" Kindly touch button No. 4 there." 

The assistant touches it. The inventor counts ten. 

"... eight, nine, ten — it is all over. There is no 
more England." 

*• Oh ! oh ! " screams the young man. 

" Now we can go on quietly with our work," says 
the master. " And if we should be at war with any 
other nation you have only to notify me. I have an 
electric button connected with every foreign country 
which will destroy it when pressed. In ten minutes 
I could destroy every country in the world, the 
United States included. Be careful, now, that you 
don't touch any of those buttons accidentally — you 
might do a lot of damage ! " 

All these stories and skits were highly diverting 
to Mr. Edison, who was vastly astonished that his 
innocent, if imaginative, remarks on what might be 
accomplished in the way of electrically devised war 
engines should have been taken so seriously and 
created such a sensation. What he did regret, 
however, was the statement that he was especially 
inventing destructive machines for use in case of 
war with England. There would never be such a 
war, he declared, and so the suggestion that he 
was devising engines to assist in the annihilation 
of the old country was absurd. At the time of the 
discussion Edison gave his opinion on England and 
her wars, in the course of which he said that usually 
Great Britain took from two to three years to get 
down to business, during which time most things 
went wrong. But she hung on and finally "got 
there " when the other fellow was tired out. In 



212 WAR MACHINES 

substance he agreed with the man who declared 
that what had made England was not its head but 
its body. This opinion was curiously verified some 
years later when war broke out between that country 
and South Africa. 

But though Edison has not given much attention 
to the creation of war machines he has experimented 
quite a little with explosives, and their peculiarities 
have always had a fascination for him. In his early 
days — when he was a boy selling newspapers — he 
liked experimenting with things that might possibly 
explode, and while a " cub " operator he compounded 
a kind of gun-cotton sufficiently strong to blow the 
front of the stove out. Edison does not consider 
dynamite, even when roughly handled, in any way 
dangerous, but regards it as the safest explosive we 
possess. In the magnetic separation of ores Edison 
used a great deal of dynamite, and as an object- 
lesson to the men he on several occasions took them 
into the woods surrounding the mines to prove to 
them how safe an explosive dynamite really was. 
He would burn it before them, throw rocks at it, and 
altogether treat it with considerable contempt. He 
did this in order to prove to them that with ordinary 
care dynamite might be relied upon to behave itself. 
The men learned their lesson well, for ever since 
then, though they have handled tons of the 
explosive, not a single accident has occurred. 

Nitro-glycerine, on the other hand, is dangerous 
at all times. Put a drop of it on a table and touch 
it with a hammer and you and the table and the 
hammer will in all probability leave the house 
together. But even this explosive is comparatively 
safe compared with iodide of nitrogen, whose ex- 
plosive power is equal to 4,000 feet a second, which 



SENSITIVE EXPLOSIVES 213 

is nearly three times the velocity of sound. In his 
experiments with explosives Mr. Edison has made 
some so sensitive that they would "go off" if 
shouted at. A drop placed on the table and yelled 
at would explode. " You see," he said in explaining 
this curious phenomenon, " the thing is in a state of 
very delicate equilibrium. It is a question depend- 
ing on surrounding conditions as to which it will 
do — remain a liquid or turn into gas. When this 
balance is about equal it takes very little to incline 
it toward a gaseous form, so that even the sound 
of the voice will cause a change. A violent fit of 
coughing will produce the effect, and so would a 
heavy weight dropped on the floor." 

Mr. Edison regards these highly sensitive ex- 
plosives with a good deal of affection, for by means 
of one he was, years ago, enabled to find a way out 
of what appeared at the time to be something of a 
difficulty. While conducting his experiments in 
explosives he was one morning visited by some 
ministers who insisted on boring him very con- 
siderably in his laboratory. The inventor treated 
them, as he treats every one, courteously and kindly, 
but as the day wore on and there was no sign of their 
retiring, he began to think that it would be necessary 
to hint to them that they were monopolising rather 
more of his time than he could very well afford to 
spare. So he casually informed them that he was 
experimenting with very delicate explosives and he 
would be sorry if any of them got hurt. 

But this only had the effect of increasing their 
interest, and they got in his way, distracted him by 
foolish questions, and made him generally nervous 
and — almost — irritable. The inventor heaved a 
scarcely concealed sigh and set himself the task 



214 WAR MACHINES 

of evolving a plan whereby he could get rid of them 
without appearing to be rude. After a few minutes 
an excellent idea suggested itself, and taking some 
of the material that he had been experimenting with 
he put a drop or two about the room — in places 
where there was no danger of a minister being blown 
through the window. The visitors watched him with 
growing interest, apparently felt no uneasiness at his 
actions, but rather crowded round him the more. 
Then the inventor took a seat at the bench and 
continued his investigations. Presently he jumped 
up with a dramatic " I have it ! " and knocked a 
heavy board off the table, which fell with a crash to 
the floor. What followed was rather worse than 
even Edison had intended. No windows were 
broken, but through the deafening explosion which 
occurred, a number of glass bottles were smashed, 
an electrical apparatus put out of business, a table 
overturned, and the ministers frightened almost out 
of their wits. They put their hands to their heads in 
evident fear of something worse, and then asked 
what had happened. Edison took the matter very 
coolly, and explained that such explosions were 
constantly happening, though he was glad to say 
they hadn't killed any one since the Fall. He 
hoped there would not be another bust up that 
day, but you never could tell. The ministers 
declared it was all very interesting, but they guessed 
they'd better be going, and grabbing their hats they 
hastily bid the inventor goodbye and departed. 

The above story recalls the fact that Mr. Edison's 
faculties are frequently put to severe tests in devising 
methods for getting rid of unwelcome visitors. " On 
one occasion a reporter called to see the inventor, 
and as the paper he represented was not one which 



GETTING RID OF A REPORTER 215 

had Mr. Edison's sympathy — it had several times 
been guilty of ascribing to him various ridiculous 
statements which had no foundation — he was desirous 
of getting rid of him speedily but without offence. 
So he asked the reporter if he objected to his talk- 
ing while continuing his experiments in the inner 
chemical laboratory, and the visitor expressed himself 
as being delighted. It would give an added interest 
to the interview. So they adjourned to Mr. Edison's 
own private room in the laboratory, and the inventor 
again asked to be excused talking until he had his 
apparatus in order. 

" He got out a machine peculiar for its power of 
charging the surrounding atmosphere with a certain 
form of oxygen highly objectionable to any one but 
the most enthusiastic scientist, and soon had the 
engine going full blast. Of course, Mr. Edison didn't 
mind the fumes in the least, and he smilingly turned 
to his caller with his usual cheery : ' Well, what can 
I do for you ? ' But the reporter was speechless, 
the fumes had got down into his throat and into his 
eyes, and, it appeared to him, were making their way 
through his ears into his brain. He attempted to 
put the questions with which he had come fully 
charged, but it was impossible by reason of his 
choking and coughing. He was obliged himself to 
bring the interview to a sudden close, and begged 
leave to retire, greatly to the well-feigned surprise 
of the inventor, who, by his manner, appeared some- 
what offended at the reporter's hasty retreat. 
Whether the man ever suspected the trick that 
had been played upon him is a question, but there 
is no doubt about his failing to return to the 
laboratory to continue his interrupted interview 
with the joke-loving inventor." 



CHAPTER XIV 

ELECTROCUTION 

THE question is sometimes raised as to whether 
Mr. Edison invented the machine by which 
condemned criminals in certain States of America 
are electrocuted. He did not, though when the 
apparatus was being installed at Auburn, he visited 
the prison and inspected the interesting instrument 
whereby murderers who commit their crimes in the 
State of New York are sometimes shocked out of 
existence. Moreover, when experiments were being 
conducted to decide whether or not electrocution 
should be adopted as the capital sentence in lieu 
of hanging, Mr. Edison placed his Menlo Park 
laboratory at the disposal of the investigators and 
allowed some of his electricians to assist in the work 
of investigation. 

When the idea of adopting electrocution as a 
means of punishing murderers was first suggested 
it was laughed at, and the majority of the news- 
papers made merry over what they regarded as a 
jest. They declared that such a form of execution 
would never be adopted in America. But, to the 
surprise of many, the idea found favour with the 
Governor of New York State, and a Commission 

consisting of Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, Medical 

216 



EXPERIMENTS IN ELECTROCUTION 217 

Superintendent of the Auburn Asylum for Insane 
Criminals ; Dr. A. D. Rockwell, a celebrated in- 
vestigator of electrical phenomena ; Dr. Edward 
Tatum, Mr. Harold P. Brown, an electrical engineer, 
and others, was appointed to inquire into the matter, 
and the members at once set about making certain 
experiments to determine whether electrocution was 
not, after all, a more humane form of execution than 
hanging. 

Mr. Edison was appealed to, and though the 
subject was not one with which he had much 
sympathy — he declared that he would be sorry to 
see electricity put to so bad a use — he acceded to 
the request that certain experimental work might be 
conducted at Menlo Park, and cheerfully put at the 
disposal of the investigators a large building at the 
rear of the laboratory, where numerous experiments 
were conducted. Mr. Harold P. Brown was ap- 
pointed by the State to carry out these experiments, 
the primary object of which was to decide the place 
and method of applying the electrodes in order to 
produce death with the minimum amount of pain. 
It had previously been decided that the only current 
producing a satisfactory result was that known as 
the " alternating," and in all experiments conducted 
at Menlo Park this current was employed. It may 
be mentioned that this alternating current is one 
which, instead of giving the victim a continuous 
shock, strikes a series of blows at the rate of three 
or four hundred a second. In all electrocutions 
carried out at Sing Sing and Auburn prisons the 
alternating current is employed. 

The experiments to decide the merits of electro- 
cution over hanging took place on March 2, 1889^ 
in the large wooden building which Mr. Edison had 



2i8 ELECTROCUTION 

had fitted up with every electrical appliance neces- 
sary for the purpose. The victims chosen were 
several dogs, four calves, and a horse. The dogs 
claimed the attention of the experimenters first, 
and a big black Newfoundland quietly submitted 
to being weighed — he turned the scale at close on 
ninety pounds — and then with the same docility 
allowed a small plate of brass, covered with felt 
and soaked in a solution of salt, to be tied to his 
head, while a bandage moistened with the same 
lotion was fixed to his right leg with a piece of 
copper wire. Lest he might show a desire to run 
away, the animal was made to stand in a box, but 
flight seemed far from his intention. He seemed as 
interested in the experiments as any one present. 

The dog's " resistance " was next computed by 
means of two fine wires connected with the elec- 
trodes to which was attached a registering instrument. 
A slight shock was then sent through the animal — so 
slight that he scarcely winced — but of sufficient 
strength to correctly record his power to withstand 
the electric current. Heavy wires then took the 
place of the fine ones, the current was turned on, 
and the animal immediately stiffened. There was 
a slight tendency to leap forward, but it was 
momentary, and the animal remained perfectly 
still. The current was kept up for ten seconds, and 
when turned off the dog dropped in a heap perfectly 
dead. 

The calves died just as easily. They weighed 
about 100 lbs. and were given 800 volts each, and the 
current kept up for fifteen seconds. In the case of 
the horse 1,000 volts of electricity were used and con- 
tinued for twenty-five seconds. Death in each case 
appeared to be instantaneous. All those who took 



FIRST CRIMINAL ELECTROCUTED 219 

part in the experiment declared that they proved 
that death by electricity was more rapid and less 
painful than any other form of execution. The 
Commission recommended that for the greater 
comfort of human victims a well-fitting helmet 
should take the place of the brass plate, while the 
bandage on the leg might with advantage be dis- 
carded in favour of a shoe furnished with a metallic 
sole. They added that the prisoner should be bound 
in an arm chair, and inasmuch as human resistance 
was always greater than animal resistance — though it 
varied in every individual — 2,000 volts might be 
counted upon to satisfactorily perform the happy 
dispatch. It was at that time stated on the 
authority of the Commission that a 1,000- volt con- 
tinuous current might be taken by any person in 
ordinary health without permanent inconvenience. 

During the time that these experiments were in 
progress the State held prisoner a certain murderer 
named Kemmler, on whom they were very anxious 
to try the new form of execution. Kemmler was a 
pedlar, a drunken, worthless scoundrel, who, after 
persuading a Mrs. Ziegler, of Philadelphia, to desert 
her husband and follow his peripatetic fortunes, 
finally hacked her to death in Buffalo during a fit 
of inebriated rage. He was ultimately sentenced in 
accordance with a Statute of the Legislature, '' to 
suffer death by electricity at Auburn Prison within 
the week beginning Monday, June 24, 1889." 

But after many experiments had satisfied the 
Commission that electrocution was the most humane 
of capital punishments, a certain lawyer named 
W. Bourke Cockran, an ex-Congressman, " in the 
interests of love of humanity and a desire to prevent 
an inhuman execution" (to quote his own words), 



220 ELECTROCUTION 

took up the case, and for months fought the State's 
Agent, Harold P. Brown, in an effort to save 
Kemmler from the chair. The case created the 
greatest sensation, and twice the prisoner was 
reprieved while evidence was collected to prove the 
unlawfulness of the new method of execution. Mr. 
Edison figured prominently in this evidence, and 
Mr. Cockran, knowing his views to be opposed to 
capital punishment, called him early as a witness. 
But he proved a disappointment in furthering the 
cause of the humane lawyer, for the question was not 
one of sentiment but whether or not electrocution 
meant instantaneous death. Mr. Edison had had the 
" resistance " of several hundred men in his employ 
taken, and was therefore well primed on the subject. 
The day on which he gave his evidence the Court 
Room was crowded to the doors by people attracted, 
not so much by the peculiarly morbid nature of the 
case as by a burning desire to see and hear the great 
electrician. It was one of the few occasions on 
which the inventor appeared in a Court of Justice, 
and he proved an excellent witness. Deputy 
Attorney-General Poste conducted the case, and 
the distinguished witness was put through a stiff 
cross-examination. At this late date it is interest- 
ing to recall Mr. Edison's remarks in court on this 
occasion. He was evidently quite at his ease, and 
answered the questions promptly. The following is 
a brief report of Mr. Edison's evidence given while 
on the witness stand. 

" What is your calling or profession ? " Mr. Poste 
asked. 

" Inventor," briefly replied the witness. 

" Have you devoted a great deal of attention to the 
subject of electricity ?" 



EDISON ON THE WITNESS STAND 221 

" Yes." 

" How long have you been engaged in the work of 
an inventor or electrician ? " 

" Twenty-six years." 

In reply to questions he said he was familiar 
with the various dynamos and their construction, and 
that they all generated either a continuous or an 
alternating current. 

" A continuous current," Edison said, " is one that 
flows like water through a pipe. An alternating 
current is the same as if a body of water were 
allowed ta flow through the pipe in one direction 
for a given time and then its direction reversed for 
a given time." 

The witness said he had been present when the 
measurements were made in his laboratory to 
determine the resistance of human beings. Two 
hundred and fifty persons were measured, and their 
average resistance was 1,000 ohms, the highest being 
1,800 ohms, and the lowest 600. 

" Will you describe the method of the application 
of your tests ? " Mr. Poste asked. 

"We took two battery jars about seven inches in 
diameter and ten inches high, and put in each jar a 
plate of copper. In the jar we put water with a 10 
per cent, solution of caustic potash. The men we 
measured plunged their hands into the liquid so that 
the ends of their fingers touched the bottom of the 
jars. After waiting thirty seconds the measurement 
was taken." 

" Where, in your opinion, is the major part of the 
resistance located ? " Mr. Poste asked. 

" I should say 15 per cent, at the point of contact. 
The balance in the body." 

" What is the law that governs the passage of an 



222 ELECTROCUTION 

electric current, when several paths of varying 
resistance are offered to it ? " 

" It divides in proportion to the resistance en- 
countered." 

" Please explain the burning effects sometimes 
produced in the case of contact with an electric 
wire." 

" It is due to bad contact, and the difference in 
resistance between the wire and the flesh." 

" In your judgment can an artificial electric 
current be generated and applied in such a manner 
as to produce death in human beings in every 
case ? " 

" Yes." 

" Instantly ? " 

"Yes." He advised placing the culprit's hands in a 
jar of water diluted with caustic potash and connect- 
ing the electrodes therewith, and, he said, i,ooo volts 
of alternating current would surely produce death 
instantaneously. He did not think so small a con- 
tinuous current would, although by mechanically 
intermitting the continuous current it could be made 
very deadly. 

Mr. Cockran, in his cross-examination, laid much 
stress upon Mr. Edison's views as to the resistance of 
human beings. 

" Did you make the experiments on the men which 
you have mentioned with a view to ascertaining just 
how to measure the resistance of Kemmler and find 
out how men may differ in the matter of resistance ? " 
asked Mr. Cockran. 

" I did. I made experiments the day before 
yesterday," Mr. Edison replied. 

" And you found out there were different degrees 
of resistance in different men ? " 



RESISTAxNCE OF THE HUMAN BODY 223 

"Yes, but that does not mean that the same 
current would not kill all men." 

"What would be the effect of the current on 
Kemmler in case the current was applied for five or 
six minutes ? Would he not be carbonised ? " 

" No," replied Mr, Edison with a ghost of a smile. 
" He would be mummified. All the water in his 
body would evaporate in five or six minutes." 

With what he had found to be the average re- 
sistance of the human body, Mr. Edison said that 
1,000 volts would give a man an ampere of current, 
which is ten times as much as any man needs to kill 
him. In reply to a question, Mr. Edison replied that 
there was an alternating dynamo in London that 
generated a 10,000-volt current, and he considered it 
safe to double up dynamos to increase the current for 
use in executions. 

" That is your belief, not from knowledge ? " Mr. 
Cockran asked. 

" From belief. I never killed anybody," the witness 
quietly replied. 

Mr. Cockran then gave the " Wizard " a light for 
a cigar stump he had been chewing, and dismissed 
him. 

Many other witnesses were called to speak for and 
against electrocution, hundreds of scientists, elec- 
tricians, and doctors were consulted ; opinions of 
well-known men and women were cabled over from 
England and the Continent, thousands of editorials 
were written on the subject in the daily press, and 
letters from private individuals addressed to news- 
papers of all countries poured into their offices in one 
continuous stream. Meanwhile Kemmler remained 
in jail mildly wondering whether it was to be 
hanging or electrocution. Apparently the question 



224 ELECTROCUTION 

was not one which greatly disturbed him, for he 
spent the greater part of his time composing doggerel 
verses and singing them at the top of his voice to tunes 
which he had learned when he was free. He had 
been reprieved twice, but this was principally owing 
to a desire on the part of the authorities to preserve 
him until the question of electrocution had been 
satisfactorily settled, and in no way indicated any 
sentiment in his favour. In July, 1890, it was finally 
decided that punishment by electricity should come 
into force in the State of New York, and Kemmler 
was the prisoner chosen to prove the wisdom or 
otherwise of the decision. His death was fixed for 
August 6th, in Auburn Prison, and when informed of 
this he merely smiled without making any remark. 
In face of the fact that he was going to an uncertain 
and perhaps torturing death his courage was remark- 
able. To witness his death — perhaps the most 
dramatic that has ever taken place in connection 
with American criminal law — the Warden of Auburn 
Prison was empowered to send out "twenty-one 
invitations." With two exceptions he invited men 
from the ranks of science. Each man accepted and 
each was present at Kemmler's death. 

From the numerous accounts published at the 
time, the following, which was written by a news- 
paper man present at the execution, is quoted as being, 
perhaps, the most vivid. It may be mentioned that 
Mr. Edison received an intimation that if he cared to 
attend the electrocution he would be very welcome, 
but the inventor politely declined : — 

" Kemmler," wrote the special correspondent of 
the New York Tribune, "awoke from a troubled 
sleep, disturbed by the noise of approaching footsteps 
at the window leading to his cell. He hastily threw 



HOW KEMMLER WAS ELECTROCUTED 225 

on his clothes, and when the cell door was opened, 
showing by the dim light of a gas jet the Warden, 
Deputy-Sheriff Veling, of Buffalo, the Rev. Dr. 
Houghton, and Chaplain Yates, he was on his feet 
ready to receive them. He knew what they had 
come for, and he quietly bowed his head to listen 
to what the Warden had to say. The Warden read 
the death warrant, and when he finished, Kemmler 
merely replied in an off-hand way — 

" * All right ; I am ready.' He turned to the 
Deputy-Sheriff, whom he had formerly known in 
Buffalo, and said — 

" * Joe, I want you to stay right through this thing. 
Don't let them experiment on me more than they 
ought to.' Kemmler's trousers at the base of the 
spine had to be cut so that the electrode which 
rested there could come in immediate contact with 
the flesh. His hair, too, was cut, and both offices 
were performed by the Deputy-Sheriff. It was then 
near six o'clock, and breakfast was sent in, of which 
the murderer and the Deputy partook. When they 
had eaten, the minister prayed for some time. At 
the proper places Kemmler made the right response, 
and seemed to be more penitent than he had been 
since the last stay of execution was granted. 

" In the meantime the physicians, who had been 
called at 5.30 a.m., had eaten a light breakfast, and 
had started for the jail. When they passed through 
the gates, some of them carrying curious-looking 
cases, the crowd of watchers on the sidewalk stared 
at them in open-eyed astonishment. It was after six 
o'clock when the last member of the jury entered 
the jail. Then on the outside the crowd waited in 
almost breathless anxiety for some sign that all 
was over. 

16 



226 ELECTROCUTION 

" Kemmler was led through his cell by the Warden 
at exactly 6.32 a.m. He appeared to be perfectly at 
his ease, and acted somewhat like a schoolboy who 
must speak a piece, and was determined to do it as 
well as possible. When he entered the execution 
room he found the physicians and witnesses grouped 
around the death-chair in the form of a horseshoe. 

" ' Gentlemen, this is Mr. Kemmler,' said the 
Warden in a matter-of-fact tone. ' Bring me a 
chair,' was the command which came from the 
Warden's lips directly afterward, and some one 
pushed forward a common kitchen chair upon which 
Kemmler sat down. The Warden was extremely 
nervous, and his hands and voice both trembled. 
While Kemmler sat in the chair facing the physicians 
and others he showed no sign of breaking down, and 
when the Warden told him he could say anything he 
wished, he replied in a bold tone, with a knowing 
nod at the D eputy- Sheriff-— 

" ' Gentlemen, I think I am going to a good place.' 
"At a sign from the Warden he arose, and the 
kitchen chair was pushed back out of the way. 
Kemmler stepped into the death-chair with as much 
coolness as if he were going to have his shoes 
polished. The Warden and the Sheriff started to 
fasten the man's arms with the straps, but the 
Warden's hands trembled so that he could hardly 
put the straps through the buckles. Again the 
bravado of the murderer was exhibited, and he said, 
rather sneeringly — 

" ' By God, Warden, can't you keep cool ? ' 

" When they placed the electrode at the base of 

the brain it did not suit him, and he told the Deputy 

to fasten it down tighter. Warden Durston was now 

standing in the doorway leading into what had 



THE FIRST ELECTROCUTION 227 

formerly been selected for the execution room, and 
as the Deputy stepped back from the chair, he cried 
* Goodbye, William,' at the same time rapping twice 
on the door. A whistling sound was heard as the 
switch was pulled down, and the murderer stiffened 
in the chair. 

" Drs. Spitzka and Macdonald were in charge of 
the medical part of the execution. Dr. Spitzka 
stepped to the side of the chair and watched intently 
the man's face and hands. They first turned deadly 
pale, and as quickly began to change to a dark red 
colour. The fingers of the man seemed to grasp the 
chair with a firmer hold, and the index finger of 
the right hand doubled up with such strength that 
the nail cut through into the palm. 

" The current had been turned on about seventeen 
seconds when Dr. Spitzka said that the man was 
dead, and at a signal the machinery was stopped. 
The doctor turned to the Warden and Mr. Huntley 
to congratulate them on the successful result, when 
from the physicians standing about, with eyes fixed 
upon the form, came a cry, ' Turn on the current ! 
Turn on the current ! ' 

" At the instant when the machinery stopped a 
deep groan seemed to come from Kemmler's lips, 
and what was apparently a violent struggle for 
breath began. The body relaxed and became limp, 
while foam came from the mouth. There was great 
excitement for a few seconds. One of the witnesses 
fainted and had to be carried from the room. The 
signal to start the machinery was given again, and 
the deadly current entered the body. The physicians 
could hear the sound of the switch as it moved across 
the board opening and closing the current repeatedly. 
This was kept up about two minutes. The electrode. 



228 ELECTROCUTION 

which had been partially unscrewed from its position 
at the base of the brain, had not, in the hurry to 
start the machinery over a second time, been screwed 
down tightly enough. It was sufficiently near to the 
skin to complete the circuit, however, but it burned 
the flesh badly. When the current was stopped for 
the second time, the body was allowed to lie in the 
chair to cool before the autopsy should be made. It 
was then just 6.40 a.m. Kemmler had been in the 
death room altogether only eight minutes." 

The room in which the dynamo stood was in the 
north-east wing of the prison, from 800 to 1,000 feet 
from the execution room. The dynamo used was 
the ordinary commercial Westinghouse machine 
capable of producing a current of 1,500 volts. The 
current employed on Kemmler varied from 800 to 
1,300 volts. The dynamo was run by an engine in 
the basement of the prison. The wires which carried 
the current were run out of a window of the dynamo 
room to the roof of the jail and along the roof to 
a point directly over the room first chosen for the 
death-chamber in the southern wing of the prison. 
From this room two small wires ran to the engine 
and dynamo room. These wires were the means of 
communication between the room in which the 
switchboard was fastened and the men in charge of 
both the dynamo and engines, and a code of signals 
had been arranged by them. The wires were attached 
to electric bells. Two rings of the bell was the signal 
to start the engine, and a succeeding double ring was 
a command to increase the power. One ring meant 
to stop the machinery. 

The switchboard was 5 feet long by 3J feet broad, 
and upon this were a voltmeter, resistance-box, lamp- 
board, a regulating switch which governed the 



EDISON ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 229 

lamps, an ammeter to measure the quantity of 
electricity in the current, and the switch which when 
turned sent the current through Kemmler's body. 
The wires used were of the largest size electric-light 
wires. One of these ran directly from the chair, 
while the other passed through the ammeter to the 
switch. The voltmeter was governed by a wire lead- 
ing directly to the death-chair, by two branches 
running from it. One branch ran into the resistance- 
box, and the other into the voltmeter. The electrodes 
in which the wires ended were in rubber cups, in 
each of which was a sponge saturated with a solution 
of caustic soda. 

Since that first electrocution in Auburn Prison 
there have been close upon a hundred similar 
executions in the State of New York. The methods 
adopted seventeen years ago are very similar to those 
in use to-day, and death in the chair is a good deal 
easier than hanging, guillotining, or garotting, but 
still Edison, who unwillingly assisted in electrocution 
becoming law continues to affirm he deeply regrets 
that electricity ever came to be put to so bad a use. 
But apart from that, he is averse to capital punish- 
ment, and one of his wise sayings which will be 
remembered is the following : " There are wonderful 
possibilities in each human soul, and I cannot 
endorse a method of punishment which destroys the 
last chance of usefulness." 



CHAPTER XV 
THE STORAGE BATTERY 

EDISON has secured twenty patents on his 
storage battery, and in working out the details 
of what may be regarded as one of his favourite 
inventions he has spent many years of unceasing 
labour. Literally thousands of experiments have 
been made, but the final results have been so satis- 
factory that the battery has at last passed out of his 
hands and is now in charge of the manufacturers. 
During 1906 Mr. Edison devoted almost his entire time 
to the perfecting of his storage battery, for though he 
had brought it to such a state of perfection that out 
of five thousand less than 4 per cent, were imperfect, 
this did not satisfy him. Throughout his life Mr. 
Edison has always adhered to one inflexible rule — 
a rule which he made in the early days when he first 
began to be known as an inventor — viz., never to 
send anything out of his laboratory that was not 
absolutely perfect. He has therefore refrained from 
placing his storage battery on the market, in 
spite of the temptation to thereby refute the many 
statements that have appeared in the press declaring 
that his experiments in this direction have ended in 
failure. Now the huge factories which are going up in 

Orange for the sole purpose of making the Edison 

230 



TESTS FOR THE STORAGE BATTERY 231 

storage battery bear silent witness to the final 
success of this important invention. 

Said one of his men who has worked with him on 
the storage battery for many years : " Ninety-nine 
out of every hundred — perhaps nine hundred and 
ninety-nine out of every thousand — inventors would 
have been satisfied with the improvements made four 
or five years ago, and put the battery on the market 
and reaped a rich reward, but Edison is made 
differently. He aims at perfection, and as a rule hits 
the mark. He doesn't * blow ' about a thing until it 
is completed, and when it is he lets the thing blow 
for itself. These batteries, which the public will soon 
be able to sample for themselves, have been subjected 
to tests which can only be described as ' heroic' A 
year or so ago we had half a dozen machines all of 
different designs and weights, fitted with Edison 
storage batteries, and then sent, in charge of skilful 
mechanics, over the roughest roads in New Jersey. 
The trips were scheduled by Mr. Edison himself, who 
was determined to subject the batteries to tests which 
would reduce the machines themselves to scrap-iron. 
Daily each machine had to accomplish a hundred 
miles until five thousand miles had been covered. 
The worst possible roads were chosen, and when a 
machine struck a track which was particularly heavy 
and bad, that track was covered several times during 
the day until the hundred miles had been accom- 
plished. For sixty days these trials continued, and 
at the end of that time the machines were little less 
than wrecks. Many sets of tyres were worn out, 
axles split, and screws wrenched out in the terrible 
jolts, but when we came to examine the batteries we 
found that in no single instance had the slightest 
injury been received. The automobiles were fit only 



232 THE STORAGE BATTERY 

for the scrap-heap, but the batteries were in perfect 
condition for another five-thousand-mile trip. 

" Besides these tests which the batteries underwent 
in covering the rough New Jersey roads, they were 
subjected to another trial of their strength in the labo- 
ratory — a final test which, one might think, would have 
smashed them to bits. This test was carried out as 
follows : A cell was fastened to the loose end of a 
four-foot board, to which a small electric motor was 
geared. Every five minutes or so the motor would 
raise that end of the board to which the cell was 
attached three feet in the air, and let it drop with a 
crash which would have ' busted ' any ordinary piece 
of machinery. But the cell evidently felt little of the 
jar, for after every hour or so when damage was 
looked for the battery appeared as strong and 
healthy as before." 

In his storage battery Mr. Edison made the 
interesting discovery that cobalt was the material 
best suited to the making of the condenser. He had 
a long search for this remarkable metal, which is 
generally found in small quantities only, and he was 
lucky enough to strike a rich vein running from a 
point just east of Nashville, Tenn., across the line 
into North Carolina. This discovery of a bed of 
cobalt was to Mr. Edison a find as rich as a gold 
mine would be to the ordinary mortal, in spite of the 
fact that up to that time it was not regarded in any 
way as a precious metal or even a useful one. 
Indeed, its uselessness is signified by its name, which 
is derived from the German " Kobold," meaning 
" evil-minded spirit." 

It will be readily understood that in the manu- 
facture of a perfect storage battery one of the hardest 
nuts to crack was the invention of an ideal accumu- 



COBALT USED FOR ACCUMULATORS 233 

lator or condenser — that portion of the battery 
capable of containing large quantities of electricity. 
Early in his experiments Mr. Edison discarded lead 
as being heavy and cumbersome, and with his usual 
remarkable powers of deduction concluded that the 
metal he was looking for was cobalt. But he was 
confronted by an almost insuperable difficulty. 
Cobalt had never been found save in small quantities, 
and it was necessary to discover a mine of it if the 
metal was to be of any real use. He set experts to 
work hunting for cobalt, and they carried on the 
search with the same persistency which had charac- 
terised those men in bygone days who had set out to 
find a bamboo suitable for an incandescent filament. 
And the result, as before stated, was the discovery 
of cobalt in the State of Tennessee, and in quantities 
which even satisfied the inventor himself Cobalt, as 
readers are probably well aware, is invariably asso- 
ciated with nickel compounds or united with arsenic 
and sulphur, never being found native save in some 
meteorites. It is a reddish-white metal, lustrous, 
tenacious, difficult of fusing, may be magnetised, and 
will retain its magnetism even when raised to a red 
heat. Cobalt was the material, therefore, for an ideal 
accumulator, and went far towards assisting in the 
perfecting of the Edison storage battery. 

Two years ago Mr. Edison made the following 
statement in the press : " I believe that the problem 
of vehicular traffic in cities has at last been solved. 
The new electric storage cell weighs 40 lbs. per 
horse-power hour. The present lead battery of the 
same efficiency weighs from 85 to 100 lbs. I believe 
that the solution of vehicular traffic in cities is to be 
found in the electric wagon. Leaving off the horse 
reduces the length of the vehicle one-half Electric 



234 THE STORAGE BATTERY 

power will double the speed. With the new electric 
wa^e^on, the vehicular traffic of cities can be increased 
four times without producing any more congestion 
than at present. That will be a great gain in every 
way. The new storage cell will last from six to eight 
years. That is proved by actual experiments. I 
have one cell which has been in constant use for more 
than five years. The new cell will not cost more 
than the painting and the tyres of the wagon. I do 
not think the cost of operation will be quite as great 
as the cost of horses. There again we will have an 
advantage." 

The Edison storage battery may be run fifty, 
seventy-five, and a hundred miles without recharging, 
and the construction is simplicity itself. It contains 
no acid and no organic matter in any form, so that 
corroding is impossible. The only attention it needs 
is to be kept full of vv^ater in order that "a liquid 
pathway may be provided along which oxygen may 
travel between the nickel and the iron." The weight 
of the cell is 40 lbs. per horse-power hour, and 
it is as good at the end of a year as at the beginning. 
The weight of a storage battery, as every one who 
has run an automobile knows, is a serious considera- 
tion, for the greater the weight in the carriage the 
more speedily will the tyres wear out. It therefore 
stands to reason that with a battery less than one- 
half the weight of that now in use the life of a tyre 
will be doubled and perhaps trebled. And so the 
cost of automobiling will again be reduced. An 
Edison cell has been charged and discharged four 
hundred times without showing defects. In size it 
is 11^x5x2 inches, very compact and easy of 
handling. It contains a solution of potash in which 
are immersed steel plates containing oxide of iron 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE BATTERY 235 

and oxide of nickel. As soon as the battery is 
charged the oxide of iron is reduced to metallic iron, 
the oxide of nickel absorbs the freed oxygen and is 
thus raised to a higher oxide. When the battery is 
discharged, the oxygen absorbed by the nickel goes 
through the liquid over to the metallic iron and so 
oxidises the iron back to the original state. That is 
to say, the oxygen burns the iron ; but instead of 
getting heat we get electricity as a substitute. It is 
a species of internal combustion in which the oxygen 
is stored up in the nickel to burn the iron. There is 
no other reaction. The simple metallic elements are 
iron, nickel, and steel. 

To recount all the details of the development of 
this perfected Edison storage battery would require 
an entire book — a book of much human nature, of 
intense interest, of hopes and fears, of many dis- 
appointments, and of final successful realisation. In 
the first place, the defects of the old forms of storage 
batteries had to be analysed, from which it was 
found that the objections were inseparable from these 
types. Consequently a definite ideal was fixed — a 
battery that should be cheap, light, compact, mechani- 
cally strong, absolutely permanent, and generally 
" fool " proof — and for the accomplishment of this 
ideal the energies of Mr. Edison and his assistants 
were directed. 

It was immediately perceived that the use of an 
acid solution was out of the question, since that 
meant the employment of lead — the objections to 
which were fully appreciated. At the outset, there- 
fore, it was determined to use an alkaline electrolyte, 
and the question then presented was as to the 
character of active materials to be used. In this 
search for suitable active materials practically the 



236 THE STORAGE BATTERY 

gamut of chemical elements was run ; nothing was 
left untried, and in this investigation many remark- 
able and heretofore unknown discoveries were made. 

After months of patient experimenting it was 
finally decided that the metals which possessed all the 
desirable properties theoretically were iron and nickel. 
When this was settled, the real inventive work began. 
That work involved the solution of the question how 
to obtain iron and nickel so as to get those elements 
in the proper condition of activity for practical use 
in a storage battery. Literally thousands of experi- 
ments were made in this particular direction, and 
processes were gradually developed by which the 
materials were finally secured in the desirable con- 
dition. The development of the two metals was 
carried on simultaneously, the effort, of course, being 
to obtain practically the energy which the metals 
should give theoretically. In this work the develop- 
ment of the iron would sometimes be far ahead that 
of the nickel, and then some new discovery would be 
made or some new process suggested by which the 
nickel would exceed the iron. Finally, the work had 
so far developed that practically the entire theoretical 
efficiency was secured for both materials. 

At this point the mechanical make-up of the 
battery required consideration in order that a cell 
might be obtained capable of cheap manufacture, 
mechanically strong, durable, and compact. Unfore- 
seen difficulties were met with in these investigations, 
as, for example, it was found that, in charging or 
discharging, one or other of the active masses in 
absorbing oxygen tended to swell ; no solder was 
known that would resist the effects of electrolysis in 
a caustic solution ; and it was also found that during 
charging the generated gases tended to carry off 



A PERFECTED ENTITY 237 

a fine spray of the alkali, so as thereby to deplete 
the electrolyte. All these difficulties and many 
others had to be overcome. 

Even when the battery had been experimentally 
developed both mechanically and chemically, 
machines and processes had to be designed and 
invented by which the active materials could be 
made, the mechanical parts produced, and the battery 
assembled on a commercial scale. In all this work 
Mr. Edison was in the forefront, directing the ex- 
periments, suggesting modifications, preparing new 
processes, and designing new mechanical appliances, 
until to-day the Edison storage battery is a perfected 
entity, realising all the ideal conditions that were 
laid down at the start, and crowning with success 
many years of the most patient, persistent, and 
indefatigable investigations that can be imagined. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

THE Edison laboratory at Orange consists of a 
group of buildings of impressive proportions, 
erected in the midst of green meadows and shady 
trees, and is probably more picturesquely situated 
than any other place of the kind in the world. The 
town of Orange is but forty minutes by rail from the 
American metropolis, and is noted for its unrivalled 
scenery of hill and dale. Within a stone's throw of 
the laboratory is Llewellyn Park, the private resi- 
dential quarter of the town, and one of the most 
beautiful localities in the State of New Jersey. On 
the Orange mountain were fought most of the 
" battles " which took place during the South African 
war — for the kinetoscope ; and the writer well 
remembers seeing the eastern slope of Orange 
Mountain alive with men, Boers and British, fighting 
for their rights in the famous engagement of Spion 
Kop. A good-sized cannon was used to heighten 
the effect, and the kinetoscope was in position taking 
the moving pictures when, through some blunder, 
the gun was discharged prematurely, and the "officer 
in command " and two of his men were struck by the 
wad and burnt by the powder. They were carried 

off the field on ambulances, and the incident added 

238 



THE EDISON LIBRARY 239 

considerably to the success of the series of pictures, 
but during future engagements more reliable men 
were placed in charge of the ordnance, and thus 
realism was kept within reasonable bounds. 

The main building of the Edison laboratory is 250 
feet long and three stories high, while the four small 
buildings are each 100 feet by 25 feet and one story 
high. The laboratory is being constantly added to, 
and each year sees some improvement or enlarge- 
ment. At the present time immense factories are 
being erected for the manufacture of the storage 
battery, but these buildings can hardly be included 
in the laboratory proper. 

On first entering, one is ushered into a fine 
library, lOO feet square and fully 40 feet high. It 
has two spacious galleries containing a magnificent 
collection of minerals and gems which Mr. Edison 
purchased in Paris many years ago. The books 
which have been gathered together in this spacious 
room number close upon sixty thousand volumes, and 
include every magazine and journal dealing with 
scientific research published during the last forty 
years. They are in French, German, Italian, and 
English, for though Mr. Edison only speaks and 
writes his native tongue, he can read these foreign 
languages with considerable fluency. 

The library is plainly but comfortably furnished. 
There are few rugs on the polished oaken floor, for 
Mr. Edison does not believe in carpets — they collect 
microbes and are, in consequence, far from healthy. 
The oak chairs are leather-seated, and carved on the 
back are Mr. Edison's initials in monogram form — 
T. A. E. There is a large table for " Board 
Meetings," as well as two roll-top desks, an immense 
clock which takes up almost one entire side of the 



240 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

room, various alcoves furnished with little tables for 
the convenience of those who desire to study, por- 
traits of various famous scientists, a bust of Humbolt, 
and a statuette of Sandow. Mr. Edison's desk is 
situated in a corner of the room, but he is very 
seldom to be found at it, for he prefers to spend his 
time in the chemical laboratory or the workshop. 
Beside the desk is a " corresponding phonograph," 
into which the inventor sometimes dictates his letters, 
which are afterwards transcribed by his secretary, Mr. 
J. F. Randolph. 

The principal object of interest in the library is a 
life-sized statue entitled " The New Genius of Light," 
which i\Ir. Edison bought at the Paris Exposition of 
1889, where it occupied the place of honour in the 
department devoted to Italian art. It is the work of 
A. Bordiga, of Rome, and Mr. Edison was so delighted 
with the subject as well as the treatment of the statue 
that he purchased it. Perhaps it was made for the 
express purpose of attracting Mr. Edison, and, if so, 
the sculptor succeeded admirably. It is an alle- 
gorical figure typifying the triumph of electricity over 
every other kind of illumination represented by a 
youth with wings half-spread leaning upon the 
broken fragments of a street gas lamp. High above 
his head he holds an incandescent lamp, while 
at his feet are grouped a voltaic pile, telephone trans- 
mitter, telegraph key, and gear wheel. The statue 
is mounted on a pedestal three feet high, and the 
electric lamp which is held aloft is one of fifty 
candle-power. 

Near Mr. Edison's desk is an alcove containing 
a small table and a chair, and here the inventor 
was accustomed to take his modest lunch. 
On one occasion the writer was present when the 



HOW EDISON SLEEPS 241 

meal was brought in, and it may interest the reader 
to learn that it consisted of some bread, a piece of 
cheese, and a portion of fish. There was, apparently, 
nothing to drink. Less than a year ago Mr. Edison 
also kept a little cot in the library, where he used 
to sleep for half an hour during the day or when 
stopping late at night. This bed, however, has lately 
been removed to another room in the laboratory, as 
the inventor found that during the cold weather the 
library was not sufficiently heated to satisfy his love 
of warmth. Edison can drop off to sleep at a 
moment's notice, and has frequently been slumbering 
quietly while the writer has been busy near by 
examining the thousands of papers bearing on his 
work which the inventor placed at his disposal. 
Edison sleeps as gently as a child, and invariably lies 
with his right cheek resting upon his hand. No sound 
disturbs him, and he could probably find repose quite 
as profound were he to seek it in a boiler factory. 
He never suffers from insomnia, and has fre- 
quently taken his rest on a pile of sawdust or even 
a deal board. He has the ability to accommodate 
himself to circumstance, and if he had to sleep 
on a fence or a telegraph wire he would probably 
secure a very refreshing rest and awake fully 
recuperated. 

Speaking of sleep recalls an interesting story 
which Mr. Edison is fond of relating about a man 
who called upon him once asking for work, and in the 
course of conversation stated that he was a martyr to 
insomnia. Edison was delighted to hear it, and told 
his visitor that he was just the man he had been looking 
for. As he didn't require any sleep he would be able 
to work all the longer, and might get busy right away. 
" So," says Edison, " I put him to work on a mercury 

17 



242 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

pump, and kept him at it night and day. At the end 
of sixty hours I left him for half an hour, and when 
I returned there he was, the pump all broken to 
pieces and the man fast asleep on the ruins. He 
never had an attack of sleeplessness after that." 

Near the library is the stock-room, where every- 
thing necessary to scientific experimenting may be 
found, and in quantities which will possibly last for 
years. At one time there used to be a reward offered 
to the employe who succeeded in mentioning any 
substance used in science which could not be found 
in the Edison stock-room. At first the " boys " 
earned a few dollars unearthing rare materials, but 
finally they gave it up, and now it is only the 
greenest of new hands who can be prevailed upon to 
enter for the prize. The stock-room is long and 
narrow but of considerable height, and contains 
thousands of small drawers, reaching from the floor 
to the roof, labelled with a hundred queer titles, such 
as ores, needles, shells, macaroni, fibres, inks, teeth, 
bones, gums, resins, feathers, &c. A peep into an old 
order book is in itself a revelation, for there you will 
find invoices for ten thousand different kinds of 
chemicals, as well as every kind of screw made, every 
sized needle, every kind of rope, wire, twine and cord, 
skins, human and animal hair, silk in every process of 
manufacture, peacocks' tails, amber, meerschaum, 
hoofs, varnish and oils, every kind of bark and cork, 
resin and glass. Visitors frequently ask in wonder 
what all these queer materials are useful for in the 
way of scientific work, and, if the question is put 
to Mr. Edison himself, the inventor will smile 
and answer : " You are evidently not a man of 
science, or you would know that almost every sub- 
stance known can be brought into use in a chemical 



THE GALVANOMETER BUILDING 243 

or experimental laboratory. At one time I was 
seriously hampered in my work by not having the 
materials necessary to enable me to carry out my 
investigations, but now I am happy to say that any 
experiment may be conducted here, if necessary, at a 
moment's notice." Some of the substances preserved 
in the stock-room are so rare and so minute that they 
are kept in small folds of tissue paper, like diamonds, 
which they probably equal in rarity. 

One of the most interesting sections of the labora- 
tory is the galvanometer building, which stands by 
itself about 30 feet from the library. It is really 
one long room of heroic size, and lighted by a dozen 
immense windows. In its construction not a speck 
of iron was used, everything being of brass. The 
cost, which was great, subsequently proved to be so 
much money wasted, for it had not been erected more 
than a few months when the electric cars were run 
past the very door, thus rendering futile Mr. Edison's 
costly endeavour to banish " magnetic influence." 
This room contains many things of interest connected 
with Mr. Edison's early inventions. There are the 
first models of the vote recorder, the gold and stock 
ticker, the picture telegraph (a device for transmitting 
photographs over the wires), the duplex and quadruplex 
telegraphs, the microphone, the mimeograph, &c. Then 
there is a costly and rare collection of galvanometers, 
electrometers, photometers, spectrometers, spectro- 
scopes, chronographs, &c. There is also a wonderful 
set of acoustic instruments, which were used in con- 
nection with the perfecting of the phonograph, as 
well as a number of anatomical models of the ear 
and throat. Neither the first phonograph nor the first 
incandescent lamp is shown, both these interesting 
records of Edison's most famous inventions being 



244 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

preserved in the South Kensington Museum. The 
writer asked Mr. Edison why he allowed these incom- 
parable mementoes to go out of his possession, and 
he explained that some years ago an Englishman 
paid him a visit, and seemed so anxious to have 
them that he cheerfully gave them up. He appeared 
rather surprised that people should take so much 
interest in such things. 

The galvanometer room is furnished with massive 
stone tables built on solid brick foundations and 
capped with slabs of polished slate. On these tables 
the instruments are tested with absolute correctness, 
for perfect immobility is insured. The room is also 
provided with a constant flow of hot, cold, and distilled 
water, every kind of gas, live steam, hydrogen, elec- 
tricity of different pressures, waste pipes, and electric 
lights. 

At the head of the galvanometer room is Mr. 
Edison's private chemical laboratory — the sanctum 
sanctorum — where the inventor spends most of his 
time, and where many of his inventions have either 
originated or been perfected. It is probably the 
smallest room in the laboratory and almost desti- 
tute of furniture. A table and two chairs (one 
broken), with a kind of dresser running around 
the room with shelves above on which are piled 
innumerable bottles, constitute the contents of this 
historic apartment. Very few are permitted to enter 
this room — only those who are closely connected with 
the inventor in his experimental work — though when 
he is seated at his table (in all probability occupying 
the more rickety of the two chairs) solving some 
scientific problem, he is so absorbed as to be per- 
fectly unconscious of any one who might enter. It is 
in this room that Mr. Edison used to spend days and 



THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY 245 

nights without taking any rest, and often so engrossed 
in his experiments as even to forget to eat. Busy- 
men sometimes can only find time to board at home, 
but Edison didn't even do that, until one day young 
Mrs. Edison put her small foot down and insisted on 
her husband returning to the house at a reasonable 
hour, and in order that he should not have the excuse 
of saying that he had nowhere to work, she had a 
laboratory built and furnished at the Llewellyn Park 
home, where the inventor now prosecutes his scientific 
investigations during the " small hours " as diligently 
as he desires. 

Besides Mr. Edison's private chemical laboratory 
there is another and a larger apartment fitted up on 
similar lines and presided over by Mr. Fred Ott, 
Mr. Edison's right-hand man in experimental work. 
This room is lofty, spacious, and splendidly lighted, 
furnished with every contrivance necessary to scien- 
tific experimenting, and replete with philtres, stills, 
" muffles " (used for carbonising or reducing chemi- 
cals), fume chambers, test tubes (for testing the solu- 
tion of the storage battery), every kind of chemical 
numerous charts, &c. Experiments take place every 
day in this room, and occasionally they are conducted 
by scientists who visit Mr. Edison, and who are 
desirous of showing him a few things of interest. 
Edison likes to see others making experiments, and 
in 1900 he was much interested in watching Louis 
Dreyfus, of Frankfort-on-Maine, melt a bar of steel in 
a temperature of 5,400 deg. Fahrenheit, generated by 
what was then a new process, invented in Essen, 
Germany. The process consisted, briefly, in the 
combustion of a certain chemical compound in con- 
nection with powdered aluminium. Mr. Dreyfus 
placed in a crucible a bar of steel six inches in 



246 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

length and half an inch in diameter. Around it he 
scattered a teacupful of his chemical, and pouring 
on this a small quantity of powdered aluminium, he 
touched a match to it and in an instant it blazed up, 
throwing out an intense heat. In less than ten 
seconds by the watch the steel bar was completely 
melted. Mr. Edison was highly delighted with the 
experiment, said that the process was one which he 
had been in search of for a long time, and ordered a 
quantity of the chemical for his own use. It was one 
of the most successful and interesting exhibitions 
ever given by an outsider in the laboratory, and 
Mr. Edison extended a cordial invitation to the 
German scientist to come and show further wonders 
whenever he had the opportunity. 

The X-ray room, which is in charge of Mr. E. 
Dally, is a small apartment on the first floor, and 
contains the identical machine which Mr. Edison sent 
down to Buffalo at the time of Mr. McKinley's assas- 
sination, in order to locate the bullet. Curiously 
enough it was never used, and by a combination of 
circumstances its errand of mercy was rendered 
futile. The story of its journeyings is worth 
relating, for the question is still asked whether the 
President's life might not have been saved had the 
X-ray machine been used. 

Almost directly after the President was shot a 
telephone message was received at the Edison labora- 
tory asking if a machine might be held in readiness, 
should it be considered desirous to send one to 
Buffalo. Mr. Edison himself was consulted, and 
replied that the instrument could be forwarded at a 
moment's notice, and on the Saturday afternoon, 
about 2.30, another message was received asking for 
the apparatus to be forwarded at once. Two young 



THE X-RAY AND MR. McKINLEY 247 

men from the laboratory accompanied it — Mr. 
Charles W. Luhr and Mr. Clarence T. Dally. 

They arrived in Buffalo Sunday morning, and were 
busy installing the plant in the Millburn house, 
when a message came to say that the machine would 
not be required for at least a week, as it was con- 
sidered unwise to search for the bullet just then owing 
to the condition of the patient. As a matter of 
fact the doctors had come to the conclusion that 
the spent missile was located in a spot where it 
might safely be allowed to remain without any 
danger of decreasing the President's chance of re- 
covery. A few days later Mr. McKinley had so far 
rallied that the Vice-President (Mr. Roosevelt) re- 
turned to Oyster Bay, Senator Hanna left for Cleve- 
land, and two of the doctors took train for New 
York. Charles F. Luhr returned to the laboratory, 
and only Mr. Dally was left with the machine. 
Every one was hopeful, and the President continued 
to improve for some days, when there was a sudden 
and alarming change for the worse. One of the 
doctors took it upon himself to inform Dally that 
neither he nor his machine would be needed, but the 
young operator continued at his post waiting for a 
possible summons. Finally, the end came, and 
apparently the X-ray was destined to take no part in 
the tragedy. 

The following day Dally left for Niagara Falls, 
which he was very desirous of viewing before return- 
ing to New York, firmly convinced that there was no 
use his remaining any longer in Buffalo, and the 
machine was taken down. The autopsy on the body 
of the late President was to be held the same day, when 
it was confidently expected that the bullet would be 
found, but, after a search lasting an hour-and-a-half, 



248 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

it had not been recovered. Then a call was made for 
the X-ray as the only means of locating the mys- 
teriously hidden bullet, but it had been taken apart, 
and the operator could not be found. An hour was 
spent trying to find him, and then the doctors decided 
that the programme of arrangements did not permit 
them to expend any more time over the autopsy, 
and as a result the bullet was never recovered and 
the X-ray never used. To those interested in the 
progress of Professor Roentgen's discovery it was a 
great disappointment that circumstances had so con- 
trived that the machine was not even given a chance 
of assisting in the effort to save the Chief Magistrate's 
life, and by no one more than Mr. Edison was regret 
felt, for he had had high hopes that it would have 
helped materially in prolonging the life of the 
President. 

Four years later the young man who had taken 
the X-ray apparatus to Buffalo, and who had stood 
to his post so faithfully, if uselessly, died from 
the rays of the very machine he had assisted in 
conveying on its merciful errand. For some con- 
siderable time Dally had suffered from a mysterious 
skin complaint generated by experimenting with 
the X-ray, and his case had attracted the attention 
of medical and scientific men in all parts of the 
country. The disease began with small red patches 
resembling scalds but devoid of pain. Six months 
later his hands began to swell, and he had to 
relinquish his work in the Edison laboratory. But 
he was not altogether incapacitated, and spent his 
time setting X-ray machines in hospitals and colleges. 
At that work he remained for two years, though his 
hands became more and more affected. Then the 
burns commenced to smart and tingle, and finally great 



DANGER OF THE X-RAY 249 

agony set in. Indeed, so intense were his sufferings 
that at night he was obliged to lie with his arms in 
iced water in order to gain sufficient relief from the 
fiery torment to allow him a few intermittent periods 
of sleep. Photographs of his hands were published, 
and the disease was followed with absorbing interest 
by scientists in Europe as well as America. 

Then cancer attacked the left wrist. Grafting was 
advocated, and 150 pieces of skin were taken from his 
legs in an endeavour to patch up the tissues, but 
granulation refused to follow, and the operation 
proved a failure. The disease now made rapid pro- 
gress, and the left arm was amputated a few inches 
below the shoulder. It was hoped that the progress 
of the malady had been checked, but three months 
later the little finger of the right hand became 
affected, and the knife was again brought into use. 
The right wrist was next attacked, and after skin- 
grafting had again been tried and failed, the arm was 
amputated four inches below the elbow. In spite of 
all Dally was in high hopes that at last he was free 
from the terrible, mysterious disease, and had artificial 
arms made, but almost immediately afterwards his 
entire system fell a victim to the strange malady, and 
the doctors gave up hope. To within a week of his 
death Dally was optimistic, then his brain became 
paralysed, he lost consciousness and died martyr to a 
disease for which no cure has yet been found. But 
his death was not one to be entirely and solely 
mourned as a useless calamity, inasmuch as it drew 
attention to the dangers of the X-ray, and served as a 
warning to all operators against bringing their hands 
too frequently into the flood of the mysterious light. 
Mr. Edison was deeply grieved at his co-worker's 
death, and did all in his power to effect his recovery 



250 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

by obtaining expert advice and treatment, but the 
malady was one which defied the whole medical 
world. To-day the death of Dally is a sore subject 
with the inventor, and one which he absolutely re- 
fuses to voluntarily discuss. 

Near the X-ray department is a small room which 
apparently contains nothing of interest save a table, 
a chair, some lumber, and a lathe or two. But it has 
" associations," for here it was that Edison perfected 
the phonograph. Many days and nights of experi- 
menting have been spent in this room, but Mr. 
Edison never enters it now, for it is small and 
gloomy ; it has performed its duty, however, and 
deserves to be preserved. There are two machine 
shops, both spacious and excellently lighted by 
twenty-four windows apiece. One is known as the 
heavy machine shop, while the other is where all the 
light experimental machinery is made. The latter is 
presided over by Mr. John F. Ott, who superintends 
the making of all the small models. In the heavy 
machine shop, in charge of Mr. Robert A. Bachman, 
is turned out the big machinery used in the cement 
works and elsewhere, as well as the large battery 
trays. 

Another interesting room is known as the Pre- 
cision Room, where all the instruments are perfected. 
It is also in charge of Mr. Ott. Here the most deli- 
cate parts of the machinery used in the construction 
of the various inventions are made. There are many 
remarkable machines in this room, all of an automatic 
nature, such, for example, as the device by which the 
body of a phonograph is made in one operation. The 
metal box on which the phonograph is mounted is 
placed on the machine, and simultaneously eight 
holes are drilled, the box is milled, and the holes are 



PHONOGRAPH DEPARTMENT 251 

reamed to size. This takes but a few minutes, and 
one man is able to turn out a hundred a day. 

Perhaps the room having the greatest amount of 
interest to the ordinary visitor is "No 13," or the 
Phonograph Experimental Department. Formerly 
it was in the charge of Mr. A. T. E. Wangemann, 
who, unfortunately, was run down and killed by a 
train during the summer of 1906. Everything con- 
nected with the "talking machine" is shown here 
— hundreds of records, forests of horns ranging in 
length from a few inches to eighteen feet, phono- 
graphs of all sizes and shapes, machines twenty years 
old and brand new, diaphragms, musical instruments, 
a grand piano, an organ, piles of music, 8z:c. No 
mechanical parts of the phonograph are made in this 
room, for it is purely and solely used for experimental 
work directed towards obtaining better all-round 
results and superior records. 

" All the work done in this room," Mr. Wangemann 
remarked on the last occasion that the writer met 
him, " is concentrated on making better apparatus for 
recording and reproducing, better raw materials for 
cylinders, and better records, both blank and moulded. 
In fact, it is here that every effort at improving and 
advancing the present way of phonographic produc- 
tion and reproduction is made. We are constantly 
experimenting with new records, new speakers, new 
horns or funnels, and there is nothing we do not try 
in order to obtain absolute perfection of sound 
reproduction." 

Mr. Edison has a small room partitioned off 
from this experimental department, where he sits and 
listens to new records for many hours at a time, 
scribbling on scraps of paper his opinions of the 
various reproductions. In 1903 Mr. Edison spent the 



252 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

best part of seven months in this room endeavour- 
ing to render the phonograph more perfect. He 
devotes much of his time to finding out the reasons 
for poor work, for he believes that more can be 
learned from things going wrong than from things 
which go well. " As is well known," said Mr. Wange- 
mann, " there is no substance of which we have at 
present any knowledge that is proof against influence 
by sound vibrations, or which will not transmit sound 
at some velocity. If it were possible to find a sub- 
stance which would be absolutely dead to sound, and 
yet solid enough to be used in mechanical construc- 
tion, then one could obtain far superior reproductions 
of sound waves, both vocal and instrumental, than is 
at present possible. Such a substance will be found 
sooner or later, and then we shall be able to repro- 
duce sound so perfectly that it will be impossible to 
distinguish the voice of the man who makes a record 
from the record itself" 

The legal department of the Edison laboratory is 
under the charge of Mr. Frank L. Dyer, who employs 
a numerous staff and who is, perhaps, one of the 
hardest worked individuals in the building. Although 
a member of a prominent firm of patent lawyers in 
New York, he spends practically his entire time at 
the laboratory, and there is little in regard to 
Mr. Edison's numerous inventions with which he 
is not acquainted. The writer had an interesting 
conversation with Mr. Dyer recently regarding his 
department, in the course of which the patent lawyer 
said : — 

" Mr. Edison's work being based almost entirely 
on new inventions, a large part of my work has to do 
with patents and suits based thereon. Not only has 
Mr. Edison been by long odds the most prolific in- 



OPINION ON THE PATENT LAW 253 

ventor and patentee of any time, but numerous and 
frequent applications for patents are being filed by 
experimenters connected with the several companies 
that are identified with the Edison interests, such 
as the National Phonograph Company, the Edison 
Manufacturing Company, the Edison Storage Battery 
Company, the Edison Portland Cement Company, 
and about twenty others. Consequently there are 
always several hundred active applications for patents 
pending in this country and abroad, the special details 
of which have to be remembered in order that they 
may be properly prosecuted. 

" It is, of course, physically impossible for me or 
my department to attend personally to the many 
suits against infringers of the Edison patents all over 
the world, although they are conducted under my 
own direction and some by me personally. In this 
work, however, I have the assistance of other lawyers 
in New York, Washington, Chicago, London, Paris, 
and elsewhere. In addition to the patent suits, there 
are many other legal actions of which this depart- 
ment has charge and many of which it directly con- 
ducts, such as the usual damage suits for personal 
injuries, actions based on contracts, matters of in- 
surance, real estate, &c." 

Mr. Edison has no great appreciation of the pro- 
tection afforded to inventors by the Patent Office, 
though he has generally been treated with great 
consideration by the officials. He thinks the system 
is all wrong. He does not believe in the life of a 
patent being as brief as it is, or that it should be 
possible for an inventor to be " held up " by any 
one who likes to bring in the most shadowy claim 
of priority. When such a claim is brought forward, 
declares Mr. Edison, the inventor should be given 



254 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

the benefit of the doubt, and allowed to continue 
manufacturing his invention until the Courts give 
their verdict. But as the law now stands the benefit 
lies entirely with the claimant — the work of the real 
inventor being held in abeyance while the former 
is given unlimited time to make good his case, 
which he is very seldom able to do. Edison has 
on more than one occasion stated that he would 
have been many hundreds of thousands of dollars 
better off had he never taken out a patent. The 
best thing a man can do when he believes he 
has invented something which the public wants is to 
go ahead and manufacture the particular article and 
then flood the market with it. This is the only 
hope for him. He will then possibly make money 
before the pirates come along. 

Three years ago Mr. Edison had an interesting 
case on with the United States Patent Office. The 
inventor had made application for a certain patent, 
and while this was pending the examiner, it was 
stated, had allowed some one else, who had sent in 
an application along somewhat similar lines, to take 
out his application for the purpose of inserting facts 
which were covered by the Edison application. This 
was quite irregular, for according to Patent Office 
laws no one is permitted to withdraw an application 
and insert something which may afterwards have 
occurred to him. When Edison's attorney heard of 
these irregularities he asked the Commissioner for a 
new hearing, which was refused. The attorney made 
a second application to the Commissioner with the 
same result, and then he carried his case to the 
President. Mr. Roosevelt listened attentively to 
the facts, and then replied : " What Mr. Edison asks 
is not unreasonable. He occupies a peculiar position 



EDISON NOT A RAPID CALCULATOR 255 

in this inventive age, and he shall be given an oppor- 
tunity to be heard." The President then wrote to 
the Commissioner directing that Mr. Edison be given 
a new hearing which subsequently took place. 

Employed in the Edison laboratory are about a 
hundred men, consisting of electricians, skilled me- 
chanics, mathematicians, photographers, draughts- 
men, musicians, Sac, each of whom has his own 
particular line of work to attend to, and in the 
accomplishing of which he can always count on 
suggestion and encouragement from Edison, who is 
ever ready to advise. There is one thing, however, 
which Edison certainly is not, and that is a lightning 
calculator. This trait is very well indicated by a 
story told having reference to the occasion when he 
gave evidence in the Kemmler case some years 
ago. He had asserted that the temperature of a 
tube of water the height of a man would rise 8 deg. 
Centigrade under the application of a certain current 
of electricity. Mr. Cockran, cross-examiner at the 
time, asked him how many degrees that meant on 
the Fahrenheit scale. 

" I don't know," responded Mr. Edison, who had 
been admonished by Mr. Cockran a little while 
before only to tell what he knew as absolute facts. 

" You don't know ! " exclaimed Mr. Cockran. 
" Well, surely you could compute it for us ? " 

" I don't compute such things," replied the in- 
ventor. 

" Well, how do you find it out, then ? " queried the 
lawyer. 

" I ask somebody," answered the electrician. 

" Whom do you ask ? " 

" Oh, I have men to do such things," said Edison, 
stifling a yawn. 



256 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

" Are there any here now ? " questioned Mr. Cock- 
ran, looking around at the crowd, among whom were 
several of Mr. Edison's assistants from Orange. 

" Yes, there is Mr. Kennelly," and straightway all 
eyes were fixed on Arthur E. Kennelly, Mr. Edison's 
head mathematician, who subsequently became Pre- 
sident of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, and 
was generally believed to be the only man in America 
who was ever able to interpret the intricate system of 
mathematics evolved by the English electrician, Oliver 
Heavysides. Mr. Edison turned over the question of 
converting degrees Centigrade into degrees Fahren- 
heit to his associate, and Mr. Kennelly, after looking 
up at the ceiling in a meditative kind of way for a 
moment, performed the necessary mental calculation, 
and then gave the answer. 

Mr. Kennelly is but one of the clever men 
who gathered around Edison in his earlier days. 
Perhaps it is not generally known that Nikola Tesla 
served his apprenticeship with Edison, and learned 
much that afterwards proved useful to him when he 
became an inventor and experimenter on his own 
account. Tesla called on Edison one day and asked 
for work, and, liking the look of the keen-faced, 
handsome Bohemian, Mr. Edison sent him to his 
foreman, a man named Fulton. The latter offered 
to give the young foreigner a position on condition 
that he would work. Tesla swore he would slave 
until he dropped, and he almost kept his word. 
Fulton put him to the test, and kept him hard at 
work for a couple of days and nights, seldom giving 
him a chance to close his eyes. At the end of a 
fortnight if Tesla had secured forty-eight hours of 
sleep it was about as much as Fulton allowed him, 
and then the foreman magnanimously declared that 



MEN WHO WORKED FOR EDISON 257 

he must have a rest Moreover — feeling in a fairly 
generous mood — he invited Tesla to supper, and 
entering a cafe, ordered a steak — the biggest they 
had — with lots of vegetables and potatoes. When 
the steak came on the table its proportions were so 
huge that Fulton gasped, and declared four men 
couldn't finish it. However, they went ahead, and in 
time the steak vanished. Then Fulton turned to the 
young man and asked if there was anything else he 
would like. " You are out with me, you know," said 
the foreman, " and whatever you want just order it." 
Tesla looked vaguely around for a minute, as if cogi- 
tating over the matter, and then in a somewhat 
embarrassed voice he said, " Mr. Fulton, if you don't 
mind, I would like another steak." To those who 
know Tesla this story is doubly amusing, as the elec- 
trician is particularly tall and thin, and gives indication 
of rather a poor appetite than otherwise. 

Among others who have worked with Edison 
mention should be made of Francis R. Upton, 
mathematician, who solved many difficult problems 
in the transmission and distribution of electricity ; 
Charles Bachelor ; John Krusei ; Stockton L. Griffin 
and Samuel Insull, who looked after Mr. Edison's 
financial and business interests ; Charles L. Clarke, 
whose name will always be remembered in connection 
with the economy test on the incandescent lamp ; 
Charles T. Hughes, who worked on the Edison 
electric locomotive ; Luther Stieringer ; J. H. Vail, 
in charge of the dynamos at one time ; Francis Jehl, 
who worked long and arduously on the Edison 
meter ; Martin Force, who assisted in the perfecting 
of the loud-talking telephone ; John Ott, the expert 
mechanician, who thought nothing of making moulds 
for lamp filaments to the ten-thousandth part of an 

18 



258 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

inch, and who secured several patents for ingenious 
mechanical devices ; and Ludwig K. Boehm, who 
prepared the delicate bulbs for the lamps and the 
mercury pumps for exhausting them. 

An amusing story is related of Boehm when he 
was working on his pumps, which may be recalled 
here. He had met with a series of mishaps in his 
work, and was considerably discouraged, when a 
bright youth who was assisting him said, " Couldn't 
we put the lamps in a balloon and send them up high 
enough to fill them with vacuum and then seal them 
off up there ? " Boehm gave a contemptuous grunt, 
but Edison, who was standing near, said, " Good idea ; 
we'll have to take out a patent on that, sure." " But," 
queried another, " how can we seal them off if there 
is no air to use in the blowpipe ? " Edison regarded 
the objector with a fixed stare for a moment, and 
then, in a voice of assumed disgust and with a long- 
drawn sigh, answered, " That's always the way. No 
sooner does a man bring out a brilliant and practical 
idea but some ignoramus must needs interfere and 
try to show a reason why the scheme is imprac- 
tical. There's no chance for a real bright inventor 
nowadays." 

Others who have worked in the Edison laboratory, 
and whose names will long be remembered, are : 
E. H. Johnson, one of the earliest of Mr. Edison's 
associates, who, among other things, took the electric 
light to England ; S. Bergman, who was left in charge 
of Mr. Edison's Newark factory after the inventor 
went to Menlo Park, and who subsequently became 
the largest manufacturer of electrical apparatus in 
the States, and now owns very large works in Ger- 
many ; Frank Sprague, who resigned from the navy 
to go with Edison, and while with him invented the 



HOW EDISON CHOOSES A15SOCIATES 259 

" Sprague Electric System " ; Frank MacGowan, 
whom Edison sent to South America to look for 
bamboo suitable for lamp filaments ; James Seymour, 
who took the telephone to England, and afterwards 
became famous for solving ventilating and lighting 
problems in connection with skyscrapers, tunnels, 
and sub-cellars ; W. K. L. Dickson, who interested 
himself in the kinetoscope, biographed the Pope, and 
wrote an interesting history of Edison and his inven- 
tions ; Acheson, whose work is well known at Niagara 
Falls in respect to electric power ; H. Ward-Leonard, 
the inventor of a system for moving turrets on war- 
ships by electricity ; Philip Seubel, who installed the 
first electric plant ever put on a warship ; and August 
Weber, who invented a new kind of porcelain and 
made a fortune out of it. 

Edison has always shown consummate skill in 
choosing as his associates and workpeople men 
capable of withstanding long hours of continuous 
labour, and even when a very young man possessed 
the faculty for inspiring them with his own enthusiasm, 
determination, and boundless energy. "When he told 
the writer a short time ago that he had on several 
occasions spent from three to five days and nights in 
succession over an invention, he added : " But there 
are many men here who become so absorbed over 
any new discovery that they cheerfully give up their 
rest and sleep for the same length of time to help me 
work out my ideas. They are great boys." Perhaps 
there is something more to account for the affection 
with which the employes, from the highest to the 
lowest, regard their chief than that which his genius 
and powers of endurance engender. And it is not 
far to seek. Edison will never allow any of his men 
to be " called down " by an outsider if he can help 



26o THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

it, and Mr. Dickson gives a good example of this 
characteristic by relating an incident which took place 
twenty years and more ago when one of his elec- 
tricians was summoned to give the bearings of some 
intricate electrical problem before a Board of Inquiry. 

In giving his evidence the man made several mis- 
statements, which were taken exception to by some 
of the members before whom he was testifying, but 
the general verdict was waived in consequence of Mr. 
Edison's authoritative support of his employ^. No 
sooner, however, was the room cleared than the 
inventor turned to the young man and said, " Now, 
see here, you were wrong about the whole affair. I 
saw that at a glance." " You did, Mr. Edison," 
stammered the other, amazed ; " then why did you 
endorse me ? " " Because I was not going to let that 
crowd have the satisfaction of crowing over you if I 
could help it," was the reply. Is it to be wondered 
at if the man afterwards declared that he would go 
to the ends of the earth and further for such a chief? 

A quality which Edison admires most in a work- 
man is his ability to keep silence. Any employe 
who talks outside about things which he has no right 
to mention he has no use for. On one or two occa- 
sions a workman — smart and ambitious, perhaps — 
has obtained a position in the Edison laboratory, and 
soon after been "fired" through his insatiable fond- 
ness for gossip. When given a fortnight's money 
and shown the door he has felt aggrieved, not 
realising that he possesses every sense but common 
sense, and has yet to learn the value of silence. 
There are in the Edison laboratory, more perhaps 
than in any other, secrets which have to be guarded, 
and did his workmen talk the results of Edison's 
investigations would, of course, become known long 



THE FAKE CIGAR STORY 261 

before he desired to take the public into his con- 
fidence. Hence the value the inventor places on a 
man's ability to " hold his tongue." 

Edison is always affable and genial with his work- 
people, calls them by their Christian names, and 
never fails to note if any man is away sick and to 
inquire for him. He chats and jokes with the 
humblest of them, and the writer has a vivid recol- 
lection of seeing the inventor seated on a table in the 
chemical laboratory listening to a funny story related 
to him by the youngest boy in his employ, laughing 
heartily and unaffectedly, and apparently in no way 
thinking that there was anything strange or out of 
the ordinary in conversing thus intimately with what 
in England we should call the " office boy." But no 
one takes undue advantage of such familiarity, and 
Edison probably gets better results out of his people 
by the exhibition of this geniality and good-humour 
than if he cultivated a sternness and aloofness which 
he does not feel. 

Edison himself has played many a practical joke 
upon his employes, and in the early phonograph days 
he enjoyed many a laugh on them with the aid of his 
" talking machine." Sometimes, however, the joke 
was on him, as was instanced by the " fake cigar " 
story, which was a popular Edison anecdote twenty 
odd years ago. Edison was always an inveterate 
smoker, and used to keep a number of boxes of 
cigars in his room, and these were a constant object 
of interest to his associates. First one man, then 
another, would enter the room, ask Edison some 
trivial question, and when leaving would manage, 
unseen, to insert his hand in one of the boxes and 
annex three or four choice cigars. Edison began to 
suspect something of the kind, and one day he called 



262 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

on his tobacconist, explained things, and got the man 
to fix up some fearful " smokes," consisting of old bits 
of rag, tea leaves, shavings, &c., and worth about two 
dollars a barrel. These were done up in attractive- 
looking boxes, and delivered to the laboratory. 
Nothing happened, however ; there was a falling off 
in the number of Edison's visitors, but no casualties 
were reported. Then one day Edison again called 
at the store, and inquired of his dealer if he had 
forgotten to send up the fake cigars. " Why, Mr. 
Edison," replied the amazed tobacconist, " I sent up 
ten boxes of the worst concoctions I could make two 
months ago. Ain't your men through with them 
yet?" Then Edison made a rapid calculation, 
divided the number of cigars by his daily allowance, 
and was forced to the painful conclusion that he had 
consumed those " life destroyers " himself There 
and then he gave a big order for his usual brand, and 
his cigars disappeared once more with their accus- 
tomed celerity. 

Occasionally the men get up a joke on their chief, 
and they much enjoyed themselves about the time 
that Edison's daughter Madelyn was born — some 
eighteen years ago. The technical assistants got 
together and declared that something should be 
done to celebrate the event, and at first it was pro- 
posed to serenade the happy father. The suggestion, 
however, was vetoed at a committee meeting, and 
instead it was decided to draw up plans for a 
mechanical cradle intended to save Mrs. Edison 
worry and trouble in managing the baby. " Several 
ideas outside cradles," wrote one of the plotters some 
years later, " were submitted to the committee ; but 
the thought of the wizard ambling up and down the 
room in the dead of night, occasionally stepping on 



AN ELECTRIC BABY-TENDER 263 

a semi-submerged tack, was too much for us, so the 
cradle was decided upon. It was called the " Auto- 
matic Electric Baby Tender," and the plan showed 
an ordinary cradle with ingenious devices for the 
child's comfort and correct training attached. 

" Immediately above the spot where the baby's head 
would lie was a diaphragm somewhat resembling a 
telephone receiver. If the infant should start cry- 
ing, at the first wail communication was established 
between the diaphragm and an electric clock, and the 
cradle was set rocking by means of a small motor. 
If the remonstrance continued beyond a certain time, 
the clock released a lever and an arm attached to the 
side of the cradle, operated by a crank carrying a 
nursing bottle, was swung over the baby's mouth. If 
hunger was not the trouble and the wails continued, 
another arm on the opposite side swung over the 
child's mouth with paregoric, at the same time the 
electric current was turned into a set of magnets 
placed around the cradle, and any pin which might 
be causing the trouble would be at once removed. 
If the yells continued the ' thirty-third degree' was 
applied. Two arms, lying flat in the cradle under 
the baby, were slowly raised and the child turned 
over. Then an electric spanker fastened to the foot- 
board proceeded to do its work with neatness and 
dispatch." Although no model accompanied the 
plan, Mr. Edison was, nevertheless, delighted with 
the thoughtfulness of his associates, and declared 
that he was sure a patent would be granted to them 
if they applied for one. Some nervous mothers 
might not care to trust their offspring to the tender 
mercies of the " Automatic Electric Baby Tender," 
but doubtless, he said, a sufficient number would risk 
it and thus make the proposition a going concern. 



264 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

The plan of this remarkable cradle is still preserved, 
or was until a few years ago, and both Mr. and 
Mrs. Edison enjoyed many a good laugh studying 
its ingenious details. 

At the time it was not his associates alone that 
took so great an interest in Edison's baby, but the 
entire world seemed excited over the event. Lead- 
ing articles appeared in almost every paper published 
throughout the States, and the comments were in- 
teresting, amusing, astounding, or ludicrous. From 
a collection of contemporary literature on the sub- 
ject in the possession of the writer the following 
semi-serious, semi-humorous editorial is quoted as 
giving a fairly good idea of the interest which the 
event created in the public mind at the time : — 

"It is no doubt far from being an original or 
startling proposition that the outdoor life which 
prominent men necessarily lead must expose them 
to many annoying and obnoxious attentions and 
suggestions from the altogether too observant world. 
Especially does this appear the case in the affairs 
of the ingenious electrician, Edison, who has lately 
divided public opinion and drawn upon himself concen- 
trated observation by permitting the bald announce- 
ment of the fact that he had just accumulated a 
brand new baby. The unusually auspicious circum- 
stances and surroundings amid which this infant 
arrives in this vale of tears so impresses the general 
reader that he does not wait to inquire as to the 
colour of the Edison baby's hair, or question as to 
whether it is a boy or a girl, or even ask to see its 
feet ; but plunges itself into the theme of its great 
and superior advantages over the everyday baby, 
whose immediate ancestors hardly know the positive 
and negative poles from campaign flag-staffs. One 



EDISON APPRECIATES A JOKE 265 

writer suggests that Mr. Edison is already at work 
on an apparatus that will carry the baby's squawl 
off noiselessly and drop it a mile from the house. 
Another supposes that, of course, an electrical device 
to assist the baby in doing its own walking at night 
and its rocking by day will speedily be perfected. 
Whether these ideas be projected in jest or in earnest, 
it is a very serious truth that the birth of this Edison 
infant will doubtless mark the opening of a wonderful 
era for babies and parents as well. It would, indeed, 
be a very poor sample of an electrical papa who 
would permit his child to grow up like the ordinary, 
everyday baby, bounced on everybody's knee, and 
chucked under the chin and tickled in the ribs in 
old-fashioned, non-electrical styles. Forthcoming 
improvements in this line of progress are awaited 
with only a fair semblance of patience by a large 
constituency of fathers and mothers whose offsprings 
will be joint heirs with the lucky youngster who has 
the title role." 

Naturally all these sallies afforded Edison con- 
siderable amusement, for though the joke was on 
him, he could still see the humour of it. Some kind 
friend collected a lot of the published stories and sent 
them to him in a batch, and a few the inventor read 
to his wife, who, however, scarcely appreciated to the 
full the attention her baby was attracting. Even 
Edison thought the joke had gone far enough when 
visitors to the laboratory began to inquire after the 
various inventions which the electrician was reported 
to have created in order to make easy his baby's path 
through infancy. Finally, when one of these inquisi- 
tive and wholly gullible persons asked if he really 
had evolved a means whereby a baby's crying could 
be muffled without injury to the infant, Edison got 



266 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

very tired and decided to bring the interview to a 
conclusion as soon as the opportunity offered. It 
was not long coming. 

Suddenly the visitor espied a peculiar - looking 
structure standing in one corner of the experimental 
room, and in a voice of intense interest inquired, 
" What's that ? " " Why," replied Edison with a look 
of profound gravity and in a low tone, "that's the 
patent cradle that every one's talking about. It will 
be a great success, and I hope to make a lot of money 
out of it. It's not altogether perfect as yet, but I can 
tell you privately (though of course you won't say 
anything about it, as I don't want some smart fellow 
to get the idea and take out a patent before I have 
filed mine) that when finished there will be a motor 
attached which runs by sound, so that the louder the 
baby cries the faster the cradle rocks. It's a great 
scheme, and you must come and see it when I have 
it working." The visitor, somewhat suspicious at last, 
but murmuring that it was wonderful, soon after took 
his departure, and that was the last of the patent 
cradle joke. 

One more story and this long chapter may well 
come to an end. It has to do with a boy who came 
to the Edison laboratory full of determination to 
become a famous inventor, but who, owing to a 
sensitive nature and an unfortunate incident, failed 
in his ambitions when on the very threshold of his 
career and abandoned invention in favour of an occu- 
pation less distinctive. The anecdote is here given 
as related by an interviewer some years ago, whose 
name the present writer has been unable to trace, 
and who will, perhaps, forgive being accorded the 
customary credit under the circumstances. 

" Six. or seven years ago a new boy was employed 



NEW BOY IN THE LABORATORY 267 

in the Orange laboratory, and forced Edison to give 
an account of himself. It happened in this way. 
The boy was first of all told all about the man for 
whom he was to work. Then he was informed of the 
traditions of the establishment. He was told that 
the main building contained a piece of every known 
substance on earth, and that if he could name any 
substance not in the building he would be awarded 
a prize of $2.50. He was also told that his especial 
duty would be to guard the room in which Mr. Edison 
worked, it being important that the inventor be not 
disturbed by curiosity seekers or schemers who often 
tried to reach him. Then the boy was placed on 
guard, full to the brim of the importance of his posi- 
tion. But one serious omission had been made by 
his instructor : he had not told him what Mr. Edison 
was like. So when, soon after he took up his post, 
the boy was approached by a somewhat shabbily 
dressed man who attempted to brush past him, he 
grabbed that man in such a way that the man 
stopped and gasped in astonishment. 

" ' What is the matter with you, boy ? ' demanded 
the man indignantly." 

" ' You can't go in there,' retorted the boy with just 
as much spirit. 

" ' Why not ? ' said the man. 

" ' Because no one can go in there without written 
permission, or when Mr. Edison sends out for him.' 

" ' I see,' said the man, and then he turned on his 
slippered heel and walked off, while the boy looked 
after the dirty yellow duster which the man wore, 
and said several things to himself not at all compli- 
mentary to ' blokes wot would try to bluff past him.' 

" But the boy was surprised about five minutes 
afterwards to see the man in the yellow duster 



268 THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE 

coming back accompanied by the 'instructor,' who 
looked very, very serious, and who said — 

" * Don't you know who this gentleman is ? ' 

"* No,' said the boy ; *but he didn't have any pass, 
and Mr. Edison wasn't with him.' 

" ' Why, this is Mr. Edison,' gasped the instructor. 

" The boy collapsed. 

" * Can I go in ? ' said the inventor with a twinkle 
in his eye. But the boy hung his head, while the 
instructor started to berate him for his mistake. 
Then Edison turned around and stopped that in- 
structor on the spot, while he at the same time com- 
mended the boy for his vigilance. It was the fault 
of the teacher, not the boy, he said. 

" Nevertheless the effect of the incident on the 
boy was such that he never could enter the same 
room without a visible tremor. Edison, who is fond 
of a joke, sought to reassure him by winking at him 
tremendously every time he came in, but that didn't 
seem to mend matters. One day he was very sick, 
and an investigation showed that he had been en- 
deavouring to increase his courage by chewing 
tobacco. It nearly killed him, and he resigned his 
position in consequence." 



CHAPTER XVII 
NOTION BOOKS 

OF the many thousands of volumes in the library 
of the Orange laboratory none have a greater 
fascination for the visitor than the famous " Notion 
Books," a series of folio volumes containing the 
results of Mr. Edison's investigations covering a 
space of nearly thirty-five years. They constitute 
the documentary evidence of original invention, and 
have, on more than one occasion, been produced in 
a court of law to bear silent witness in suits based 
on Edisonian patents. In these books will be found 
minute details of every invention patented since the 
quadruplex made Edison's name famous in tele- 
graphy, besides which there are hundreds of ideas, 
or " notions," for inventions which have never 
materialised. Yet Mr. Edison does not keep these 
precious volumes under lock and key, but on the 
open shelves of his library, where they are at the 
service of any visitor who has the entre to the 
laboratory. 

Edison calls these volumes his " Day Books," for 
they contain the daily records of his experiments, 
together with sketches of machines drawn by him 
in pen and ink. Each and every page is dated, and 

the date attested by three witnesses chosen from the 

269 



270 NOTION BOOKS 

assistants who happened to be with the inventor at 
the time of making the entries. Every illustration 
is also initialled by the witnesses, as well as every 
paragraph of importance and every formula. The 
object of so much care and detail was, of course, to 
provide evidence in possible law suits affecting patent 
rights, and their usefulness in this respect has been 
proved over and over again, both in Europe as well 
as America, for they have crossed the ocean more 
than once to appear as witness against plagiarists of 
the incandescent lamp and other inventions. 

An English scientist who called at the Edison 
laboratory some years ago and was shown these 
volumes, declared that they had impressed him more 
than the most remarkable of the electrician's inven- 
tions. " It is necessary," he said afterwards, " to look 
over these day books in order to have a clear con- 
ception of the patience and rigorous methods, the 
workmanlike probity, and thoroughness with which 
Edison hunts after means to ends aimed at. They 
have inspired me with the most profound respect for 
this great inventor." 

The phraseology employed by Edison in his day- 
book records was a little too abstruse for the English 
scientist, however, and though he declared that the 
language used was "synthetic, strongly descriptive, 
and quaint," he was obliged to call on Dr. Moses and 
Mr. Lowry, Edison's representatives, who showed 
him the volumes, for some explanation of certain 
phrases. " He has clear terms," wrote the scientist 
to a friend, " which are probably current linguial coin 
at Menlo Park, but which would convey no scientific 
idea to a lecturer at the Royal Institution. A ' bug,' 
apparently (and it is frequently mentioned in these 
day books), is a difficulty which appears insurmount- 



WONDERFUL NOTE BOOKS 271 

able to the staff, but to the master it is 'an ugly 
insect that lives on the lazy, and can and must be 
killed.' In one book I read the following remarkable 
paragraph : ' Awful lot of bugs still. Let Moses try 
what the following solution would do to rid us of 
them.' Dr. Moses informed me that in this case the 
* bugs ' were difficulties in connection with the inven- 
tion of the incandescent light." 

In a series of these day books, extending over a 
period of thirteen months, the pages look like an in- 
ventory of a heterogeneous mass of subjects. Figures, 
notes, sketches, diagrams, are jumbled together in a 
way which defy solution by any one but the inventor 
himself, who can, marvellous as it may appear, 
interpret every diagram and every figure though he 
made them thirty years ago. Before each entry in 
these particular day books there are, for many 
columns, the letters " N.G." and a little mark made 
by Edison's pen, which indicates that he has done 
with the various items thus " ticked off." " N.G." 
stands for " No Good," and the substances named 
after these signs are the materials he tried and which 
he found useless in his attempt to make a perfect 
carbon button for the telephone. Turning over the 
pages one comes to other columns, on the left side 
of which are the letters " L.B.," " N.B.," " D.B.," " E.," 
which means " Little Better," " No Better," " Deuced 
(or any other word beginning with D) Bad," " En- 
couraging." All these " notes " have to do with the 
telephone and Edison's efforts to make a perfect 
receiver. For thirteen months these entries show 
that he experimented with different materials daily 
without being able to place beside the records any 
sign more favourable than the letter E. During 
those thirteen months he got " cold " and " warm " in 



272 NOTION BOOKS 

turns, but never "hot," and then came the incident 
of the smoky kerosene lamp, the scraping away of 
the soot which covered the inside of the glass, and 
the employment of it in connection with the carbon 
button. All these experiments with lamp-black are 
carefully detailed in the day book, some being marked 
"V.E." ("Very Encouraging"), success being thus 
qualified by reason of the fact that the soot was 
not pure, but the final entry is endorsed with the 
triumphant word " Eureka ! " written in printed 
characters. He had found success in the application 
of soot of the highest quality. 

The records covering the invention and perfecting 
of the incandescent light fill many volumes. The 
hundreds of experiments which Mr. Edison made in 
his search for a suitable filament are fully detailed, 
and each record is marked with some initial which 
tells him whether he is on the right track or getting 
further away from it. A portion of every substance 
he tried is also affixed to the records of these experi- 
ments, and scattered through the pages you will find 
filaments of platinum, iridium, silicon and boron, as 
well as specimens of different qualities of thread 
coated with plumbago, coal tar, &c., cardboard, mill- 
board, linen, from the finest to the coarsest, grape 
stalks, wood splints, cornstalks, and a hundred 
different variety of bamboo. By these day books 
one learns that there are 1,400 varieties of bamboo, 
of which about three hundred only are useful for any 
purpose. At least two hundred varieties were ex- 
perimented with by Mr. Edison. There is an inter- 
esting account of one kind of bamboo which grows in 
certain parts of Japan. Beside this record is the 
word " Eureka " again, for it was exactly the fibre 
that Edison wanted in order to make his electric 




Photo by Byron, Nnv York. 
MR. EDISON LISTENING TO A PHONOGRAPHIC RECORD. 

Page 272. 



EDISON'S NOTATIONS 273 

light an absolute success. There is a brief descrip- 
tion, too, as to the manner in which the bamboo 
must be treated in order to make the best filament. 
Not all the cane must be used but only a certain 
minute portion, and it is important that the fibrous 
material be taken from the interior of the bamboo 
when it has reached a certain growth. There is also 
a " recipe " for the correct carbonising of the fibre in 
order that the filament shall be of a very high resis- 
tance. All these records are, of course, signed and 
dated, so that it is possible to follow the inventing and 
perfecting of the incandescent light daily and almost 
hourly from the moment when Edison made his first 
experiment to that historic occasion when the trees 
of Menlo Park were strung with some three hundred 
glowing bulbs — the pioneers of a new and brilliant 
illuminant. 

As samples of other notations which appear in 
these remarkable books, the following items may be 
quoted as giving some idea of the varied character of 
those which have at different times flashed through 
Edison's brain : — 

"The matter in butter-nut shucks gives a colour 
with sulphate of iron. Try butter-nute." 

" Chloroform is a test for iodine." 

" Experiment with the instantaneous formation of 
metallic tin-flake by chemical composition in glass 
and on paper to form metallic dots and dashes in 
paper for repeating." 

" Experiment on the speed, strength, current, and 
form of coil which is best to work by induction. It 
may be a primary of 20,000 ohms R., and a secondary 
of 10,000 ohms will work with very delicate current." 



19 



CHAPTER XVIII 

BANQUETS 

EDISON has been the recipient of many 
banquets, and doubtless the number would 
be considerably greater had it not been for his 
modesty and his frequently expressed request not 
to be " lionised." He has a real and very strong 
objection to public dinners, and openly acknowledges 
that after attending one he feels more done up than 
if he had worked ceaselessly at some new invention 
for the better part of a week. As a consequence it 
must be something very important that will lure him 
from his quiet home and cause him to break his 
invariable rule of declining all banquets even when 
given in his honour. 

During the last few years two Edisonian dinners 
may be recalled, both being of so unique and inte- 
resting a character that some description appears 
almost necessary. The first of these was given 
on February ii, 1904, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New 
York, by the American Institute of Electrical 
Engineers, in celebration of Mr. Edison's fifty- 
seventh birthday and the twenty-fifth aniversary of 
the invention of the incandescent electric light 
system. In additional commemoration of the 

" double event " the " Edison Medal " was founded 

274 



THE GUEST OF HONOUR 275 

for the best thesis on current improvements in 
electricity, to be given annually by the Institute. 
Seven hundred of the most distinguished men and 
women in America attended to do homage to the 
inventor, and the banquet was one of the most 
notable ever given in New York. 

The tables were so arranged that every one could 
see the guest of honour as he sat, much to his own 
embarrassment, in front of a brilliant display of flags 
and beneath a pyramid of fifty-seven electric lamps. 
A painting of the little house where he was born in 
Milan, Ohio, had been placed on the wall above his 
head, together with the shield of the " Buckeye 
State," the coats of arms of New Jersey and the 
Empire State. In front of him were miniature 
models in sugar showing many of his inventions. 
Wires stretched across the room connecting poles 
from which ran cables to a Marconi apparatus. At 
the inventor's right hand was the original duplex- 
sender, and at the receiving end the quadruplex 
which was being used at the Baltimore office of the 
Postal Telegraph Company at the time that the 
operators were forced to flee from the approaching 
fire. Thousands of electric bulbs were strung along 
the galleries, festooned about the walls, and placed 
upon the numerous small tables. 

When all were seated, the inventor, smiling and 
happy, sounded " 73 " — " Congratulations and best 
wishes " — on the Morse code, and the room shook 
with a mighty cheer. And after silence had been 
restored a number of messages addressed to the 
guest of the evening were read, among them being 
the following : — 

" I congratulate you as one of the Americans to 
whom America owes much, as one of the men whose 



2/6 BANQUETS 

life work has tended to give America no small por- 
tion of its present position in the international world. 
— Theodore Roosevelt." 

" It is most unfortunate that I cannot be present 
when the ' King of the Telegraphers ' is to be 
crowned with the medal crown. Though absent, 
yet I here profess to the monarch loyal and un- 
faltering allegiance, swearing to render him at any 
time and all times such service as the most potent 
head of the clan that ever ruled his people ever 
received from his humble and devoted subject. To 
which I hereby pledge our life, our fortune, and our 
sacred honour. Long life to ' King Edison the First.' 
— Andrew Carnegie." 

" Hearty good wishes to Mr. Edison. I look back 
with greatest interest on his brilliant inventions in 
electric lighting and telephony which I had the great 
pleasure of successfully maintaining in all the courts 
in England. — Alverstone." 

" I joint heartily with the American Institute of 
Electrical Engineers in gratitude to Edison for his 
great electric work and for the phonograph, a most 
exquisite and instructive scientific discovery, and for 
his many other useful and well-worked-out inventions 
for the public. — KELVIN." 

" I enthusiastically join in the honours paid to my 
dear and illustrious friend, Edison, whose system I 
am proud to have introduced into Italy. — COLOMBO." 

" Admiring your great inventions, Hungarian 
friends send sincerest congratulations. — ExiENNE DE 
FODOR." 

" Honour to your illustrious guest. Fraternal 
greetings to the American Institute of Electrical 
Engineers. — ASCOLI, President Italian Society of 
Electrical Engineers." 



A TOAST TO EDISON 277 

After this came Mr. Edison's message, which 
read : — 

" I want to thank you and all my fellow members 
of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 
for the great honour done me in thus celebrating my 
birthday, associated with the twenty-fifth anniversary 
of the complete development and srccessful intro- 
duction of the incandescent lamp. Your expressions 
of goodwill gratify me greatly. 

" The early days were enough to tire out any one's 
courage and persistence, but you stood it all and put 
up with me into the bargain. Now, in noble revenge 
for the burdens I put on you, and in addition to all 
the evidences of friendship in the past, you add this 
unusual token of continued affection. I should not 
be human if I were not profoundly affected and 
deeply grateful. 

" This medal is founded to encourage young men 
to devote their best thought and work to electrical 
development. God bless them and you, my dear 
friends, and this American Institute of Electrical 
Engineers." 

Then followed this fine toast, proposed by the 
Toast Master : — 

" As I am about to propose the health of our 
.•^uest, let me say there should be encouragement 
in the founding of this medal to-night for every 
struggling, ambitious youth in America. Let our 
sons recall and applaud the cheery little newsboy 
at Detroit ; the half-shod, half-frozen operator seek- 
ing bravely a job along the icy pikes of the Central 
States ; the gaunt, untutored experimenter in Boston 
taking eagerly much-needed fees for lectures he was 
too modest to deliver ; the embryonic inventor in 
New York grub-staked by a famous Wall Street man 



2/8 BANQUETS 

for his first stock-ticker ; the deaf investigator at 
Menlo Park who wreaked novel retaliation on his 
affliction by preserving human speech for ever with 
his phonograph ; the prolific patentee who kept the 
pathway to the Patent Office hot with his footsteps 
for nearly forty years ; the genius, our comrade, who 
took this little crystal bulb in his Promethean hand, 
and with it helped to give the world a glorious new 
light which never was before on land or sea — Thomas 
Alva Edison." 

In his reply Edison telegraphed his speech, which 
consisted merely of a few words of thanks, by means 
of the Western Union Edison quadruplex instrument 
which was on the table beside him. The message 
was received on a " Postal " portable " quad " placed 
at the right of the speaker's table. The telegraph 
circuit was looped on a wireless set of instruments, 
of which the transmitter was at the left of the 
speaker's table. It was so arranged that when 
Edison operated the key a spark was transmitted 
over the repeating sounder to the aerial transmitter, 
which conveyed a wireless message to the other end 
of the table. It was at 10.18 that Edison placed his 
finger on his original Western Union quadruplex 
and proceeded to telegraph his message of thanks 
to Colonel A. B. Chandler, President of the Postal 
Telegraph Company. At least half those present 
understood the Morse code, and as soon as the 
instrument began to click there was complete silence, 
while the band softly played the opening strains of 
"Auld Lang Syne." A moment later, however, it 
was evident that there was something wrong, for the 
instrument clicked intermittently, and Mr. Chandler 
asked Edison to repeat several times. Finally Edison 
rapped out, " It's not up to me," and there was a 



THE MAGNETIC DINNER 279 

hearty laugh from those who understood the Morse 
signals, but immediately afterwards the apparatus 
was adjusted and Edison successfully telegraphed 
his brief message. 

One of the prettiest and most interesting features 
of this unique banquet was the procession of waiters 
— over a hundred — bearing ices contained in models 
of motors, phonographs, switchboards, automobiles, 
incandescent apparatus, dynamos, megaphones, 
batteries, &c., the ices themselves being in the form 
of incandescent bulbs. To each guest some souvenir 
was presented, either a small ivory box bearing a 
model of the "Genius with the Lamp," or a pin 
made in the miniature of an incandescent lamp. 
The menus were elaborate and beautiful, and bore a 
reproduction in raised medallion of a bronze bust of 
Edison, beneath which the inventor had inscribed his 
autograph. 

The second notable banquet to which special 
reference may be made is remembered as the 
" Magnetic Dinner," and it was given in honour of 
Edison, April 15, 1905, at the Hotel Astor, New 
York. It was arranged by the Magnetic Club, an 
important institution whose members consist of the 
officials and employes of the telegraph, telephone, 
electric light, and electric manufacturing companies 
of the American metropolis. The President of the 
Club, Colonel A. B. Chandler, presided, and acted 
the part of toast master in a unique and original 
way, his speech being punctuated by pre-arranged 
illustrative incidents, which, though they delighted 
those present, almost brought a blush of embarrass- 
ment to the modest cheek of Mr. Edison. 

" I desire," said Colonel Chandler, "to call attention 
to the most noteworthy achievements of this great 



28o BANQUETS 

old telegrapher. First I shall mention the quadru- 
plex transmitter." 

An instrument which had been concealed in a 
corner of the room suddenly began to " dot " and 
" dash " in a highly excitable manner, the orchestra 
commenced playing the air of " My grandfather's 
clock," and the three hundred guests sang : — 

"When they tell their stories now of the way they used to 
send, 
And the record-breaking work they used to do ; 
And the way, every day, they would roast the other end, 
We are sorry that those happy days are through." 

Mr. Edison beamed with delight and even hummed 
the old melody a bit himself; but before he had time 
to express his thanks for the novelty of the idea, 
Colonel Chandler said : " I think that the telephone 
should be mentioned next." This was the signal for the 
ringing of a dozen 'phone bells, a chorus of " Helios," 
and the singing of a ver^e of " Hello, my baby ! " 
After that the phonograph was mentioned, and from 
the huge funnel of a " talking machine " came the 
martial strains of ''The Stars and Stripes for Ever." 
The last note had scarcely died away when Colonel 
Chandler said : " But the greatest of all, perhaps, was 
electric lighting." Members of the club who knew 
their cues touched various buttons, and every light 
in the room winked out — all save the wax candles on 
the tables. And in the semi-darkness the excited 
guests sang this parody of a popular song : — 

" It was just like this in the olden days, 
Which have passed beyond recall ; 
In the rare old, fair old golden days 
It was just like this, that's all : 

Then we studied hard by the candle light, 
With our visions of future gold ; 

And some have realised all right 
Since the days of old." 



A PICNIC AT MENLO PARK 281 

Mr. Edison was called upon for a speech, but with 
his usual modesty he declined, though he bowed his 
thanks with a smile that was brighter even than one 
of his own electric lights. 

Before closing this chapter mention should be made 
of another dinner which was given to Edison also 
during that year which saw the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of his invention of the incandescent electric 
light system. It was of the simplest kind, and, 
therefore, one which, perhaps, appealed more to 
Mr. Edison and pleased him better than a more 
gorgeous banquet would have done. It was given 
in his honour by the General Electric Outing Club, 
and the members hit upon the altogether delightful 
plan of holding the dinner almost on the very spot 
which had seen the inventing and perfecting of so 
many Edison wonders — Menlo Park. 

It was a Saturday — June 14th — and the inventor 
joined his entertainers about four o'clock in the after- 
noon, arriving at the Park in his automobile. After 
shaking hands with every one, Edison said he would 
like to have a look round — to renew his acquaintance 
with those well-remembered spots to which he had 
been so long a stranger. The buildings in which he 
had laboured so many years are still standing, includ- 
ing the very room in which the first commercially 
successful incandescent electric lamps were manu- 
factured — a tiny room providing accommodation for 
barely a dozen men. As Edison walked about the 
grounds with various members of the club he talked 
of his early struggles, of the long nights he had spent 
endeavouring to solve some difficult problem, of the 
stern fights he had had with Nature to compel her to 
yield the secrets she so jealously guarded, and of the 
final triumph of the carbon telephone transmitter and 



282 BANQUETS 

the carbon filament for the electric lamp. He re- 
called the fact that it was many years since he had 
visited his old haunts, and he declared with a smile 
of unusual sweetness that he was glad to return in 
such good company and on the quarter-century 
anniversary of his most important invention. 

Then he went into the old workshops, and for 
some moments stood there thoughtfully, saying 
nothing, but gazing with interest on the very benches 
where he had frequently laboured for sixty hours at 
a stretch. The men who were his hosts remained 
outside during these moments devoted to " looking 
backward," and were themselves silent as they recalled 
the impressive fact that the " Wizard " was revisiting 
places which had seen the birth of innumerable 
wonders evolved from his own brain. 

Every part of the grounds was visited, and when 
the tour of inspection was completed Edison, who 
had been a little grave, was his own cheerful self 
again and chatted and joked with his friends in his 
old familiar way. The meal was ready at six o'clock. 
It was a lovely evening, and a noble banqueting-hall 
was formed by giant trees, green grass, and a cloud- 
less sky. A great log was relegated to Edison as the 
seat of honour. He took it modestly and was imme- 
diately helped to a leg of cold roast chicken. This he 
held in one hand and a piece of bread in the other, 
and it was a pleasant sight, declared the members, 
to see the great inventor straddling the log, taking 
alternate bites at the browned leg and the bit of 
bread while relating stories of his early days. All 
his stories were not humorous, though a great number 
were. He told the younger members how he had to 
struggle and " hustle " before he received any en- 
couragement or recognition, but he did not let this 



A ONCE FAMOUS VILLAGE 283 

cast him down or lessen his determination to " get 
there " some day. And his advice to them, given in 
a semi-serious voice, was to go ahead and never give 
up. A path, he said, sanely laid out and honourably 
followed, always led somewhere — usually to success 
if not great riches. Some one referred to the big 
dinner which had been given to Edison in New York 
a few days previously, and added in tones which 
clearly indicated a desire to be contradicted : " I 
suppose you liked that better than this ? " And 
Edison replied, as every one hoped he would reply, 
by saying in a very earnest way : " No, sir, I had a 
good deal rather be here. I get tired of big banquets 
and seldom attend them if I can help, but a picnic 
like this — well, that's the way I would dine every 
day if I had my choice. The outdoor air whets the 
appetite and helps digestion. I'm glad to be here." 

It was not until the sun had set and twilight had 
fallen that Edison bid his hosts goodbye, and, enter- 
ing his car, finally took his departure from the Park 
which his genius had made famous, and where he had 
so long reigned as " Wizard." 

Should the reader ever be in the vicinity of New 
Jersey he might spend a less interesting hour than 
visiting Menlo Park. He will, it is true, find an air 
of melancholy brooding over the once famous village 
— as though the very atmosphere were mourning 
some dead and gone glory — but there is still much 
remaining which will repay him for the trip. Two 
furlongs from the railroad he will see an old, dilapi- 
dated and disused trolley-car at which he may possibly 
cast a contemptuous glance should he be ignorant of 
the fact that it is the first car of the kind which ever 
ran in America, and, in fact, the world. How many 
famous people it carried in the heyday of its youth 



284 BANQUETS 

who can say? Certainly few noted personages — and 
some who were not noted — who visited Edison in those 
" Wizard " days, failed to take a ride in the wonderful 
electric trolley-car before bringing their tour of 
inspection to a close. That car is not occupied now, 
at least during the day, though on cold nights, or 
when a storm rages, an old cow occasionally wanders 
in and takes her repose where the giants of the 
scientific world once stood. When Edison had built 
this car he laid down three miles of rails, and the 
miniature electric trolley system attracted thousands 
of visitors to Menlo Park. " From this little line," 
says a writer, " sprang the huge network of trolleys 
which covers country and city, in which hundreds of 
millions of pounds are invested, and on which billions 
of passengers are carried yearly." At Menlo Park 
you may still see some of the trolley wires, but they 
hang with a melancholy sag, for it is many years 
since they were " alive." The rails were torn up soon 
after Edison removed to Orange. 

Having inspected the trolley-car you will probably 
notice a two-storey building which is in a good state 
of repair. Inhabitants of Menlo Park take pride in 
informing you that it is Edison's first experimental 
laboratory, and that in this building were invented 
and perfected the incandescent electric light system, 
the phonograph, the carbon telephone, and many 
other important inventions. The building is inhabited 
— the lower storey by a volunteer fire-brigade and 
the upper by an amateur theatrical company. Then 
there is a little brick building which, twenty-five 
years ago, was the " main office," and where Edison 
used occasionally to attend to his correspondence. 
An old man lives there now — or did until quite 
recently — who was popularly regarded as a hermit, 



THE "OLDEST INHABITANT" 285 

and who, when questioned by interested visitors, 
would disclaim any knowledge of his distinguished 
landlord. And this, perhaps, is scarcely to be 
wondered at seeing that he pays no rent. 

Behind the old laboratory is the machine shop 
built by Edison, and which has seen the creation 
of those electrical wonders which shed a glory on the 
name of Menlo Park. Now that machine shop 
stands vacant and deserted and crumbling into decay. 
There are, however, heavy brick foundations remain- 
ing in good preservation whereon Edison built his 
first dynamos — gigantic affairs weighing nearly thirty 
tons, and which were the astonishment of all Europe. 
These dynamos are no longer in existence — they 
performed their duties, and years ago were reduced 
to scrap-iron and sold to the junk shop. 

Though it is almost twenty-five years since Edison 
removed his laboratory from Menlo Park his name is 
still mentioned with pride by the villagers. He was 
known to every one, and would chat and crack jokes 
with the humblest just as readily then as he does 
to-day. The stranger to Menlo Park hears many 
anecdotes about how the inventor would remain days 
and nights at his work without sleep and with very 
little food, and how he showed irritation only when 
disturbed while engaged in solving some problem 
which had defied every one else. Stories of his good- 
heartedness and geniality are numerous, and there 
are few who have not some incident to relate to the 
credit of the inventor. Meet the " oldest inhabitant " 
and ask him if he knew Mr. Edison, and he will 
answer : " What, Tom Edison ? Well, I should say. 
Me and him was like brothers. Always affable he 
was, and very free with his money. Yes, he's got on 
since he lived here, and I guess he's as well known 



286 BANQUETS 

the other side of the world as he is in Menlo Park. 
That talking machine was a wonderful thing, and 
made a great name for him. I remember the folks 
coming from New York to see the first electric lamps, 
and how astonished they were. But we weren't, for 
there was nothing, we thought, that Tom Edison 
couldn't do. He was a wonder, sure ! " 

Many people to this day suppose that Edison still 
resides in Menlo Park, and the post-office there is 
constantly forwarding letters to the inventor which 
have been addressed to the once famous locality under 
the impression that the " Wizard " is still its chiefest 
inhabitant. It was, indeed, a bad day for Menlo 
Park when Edison removed his laboratory to Orange, 
and the village never recovered from the shock. 
When the inventor left, all the glamour and mystery 
which had made the little place famous the world 
over faded away and the town rapidly began to 
decline in popular favour. Each year saw some de- 
crease in its population until to-day it is little better 
than a deserted village. The railroad trains drop 
very few passengers now at Menlo Park, and these 
are for the most part pilgrims anxious to visit the 
place where Edison invented those innumerable 
devices which have made his name a household word. 
And after visiting the laboratory they seldom fail to 
view the Edison homestead a few hundred feet dis- 
tant, and which was occupied for some years after the 
inventor left Menlo Park by his daughter, who now 
lives in Germany. The property still belongs to 
Edison, but is now tenanted by an Italian family 
who live there on the same terms as the old hermit, 
viz., rent free. 



CHAPTER XIX 

IN EUROPE 

EDISON has not made many visits to Europe, 
and gives as his reason that he cannot stand 
all the kindnesses which are showered upon him. 
But he has stated on more than one occasion that he 
contemplates a return visit in the near future, when 
he hopes to meet many of those interesting people 
who have paid his laboratory visits at various times. 
Edison's most noted trip to Europe was in 1889, 
when he went across especially to visit the Paris 
Exposition at which he was so prolific an exhibitor. 
His preparations for the display of his inventions 
was of a very elaborate nature, and a small army 
of men were engaged for months preparing the 
various exhibits. No fewer than three hundred 
immense cases of goods were shipped to Paris, the 
freight alone costing ^500, while the total expenses 
of the Edison exhibition reached ;^i 5,000. One- 
third of the space allowed the United States in the 
Machinery Temple was allotted to Mr. Edison, and 
without doubt his exhibit was the sensation of the 
Exposition. 

Mr. Edison did not visit Paris until long after the 
Exposition was open to the public, but on the 27th 

of April the following cable appeared in the New 

287 



288 IN EUROPE 

York papers : " President Sadi-Carnot has been 
profuse in courtesies and attentions to Thomas Alva 
Edison, the American inventor, since the latter's 
arrival in Paris for the purpose of superintending the 
establishment of his exhibit of electrical apparatus 
on the Champs de Mars. Mr. Edison has been 
received at the official residence with the utmost 
cordiality by the President, and has had several 
interviews with him, in which M. Carnot has mani- 
fested the greatest interest in the inventor's work." 

It so happened that a New York Evening Sun 
reporter had been in communication with Mr. 
Edison's secretary at his Orange laboratory the 
day before, and his surprise when the item met 
his eye was great. As the announcement was not 
confined to one paper, but had appeared in nearly 
all the morning papers, it was obvious that there 
was a mistake somewhere. Doubtless the French 
President had been imposed upon. The reporter, 
who was anxious that his paper should maintain its 
reputation for correct news, immediately travelled 
down to Orange for the purpose of finding out 
whether Mr. Edison had secretly invented some 
method of crossing the Atlantic during the night 
and had really arrived in Paris, or whether he himself 
had been deceived in what he had been told regard- 
ing the inventor the day before. The minuteness of 
the dispatches in describing the manner in which 
M. Carnot was fraternising with the great American 
inventor on the Champs de Mars made them appear 
as truth personified. The following amusing descrip- 
tion of the reporter's " search after facts " appeared 
in a late edition of his paper : 

" The newspaper man carried a pocketful of the 
strange dispatches down to Orange, in order to show 



JOKE ON THE FRENCH PRESIDENT 289 

Mr. Edison's private secretary how irreligiously the 
latter had imposed on the reporter's credulity when 
he declared yesterday that Mr. Edison was upstairs 
in his workshop undergoing a process of incubation 
on another electrical discovery. 

" ' Is Mr. Edison in ? ' the reporter inquired of the 
office boy, very authoritatively. 

"* He has just gone to New York with his private 
secretary,' the boy replied. 

" ' He is in this country, then, not in Europe — not 
in Paris ? ' 

"The boy appeared dazed. He looked around 
him once or twice as though about to call for assist- 
ance, when the reporter assured him that everything 
was all right. 

" * Has Mr. Edison a representative at hand ? ' 

" Mr. Bachelor was summoned. The reporter pro- 
duced the dispatches. Mr. Bachelor hastily scanned 
one of them and smiled. 

" * Well, all that I have got to say is that he was 
here this morning. If he is now in Paris he must 
have gone by the air-line.' 

" Mr. Bachelor smiled again as he spoke, and called 
the attention of several in the office to the articles. 
All laughed heartily. 

" Mr. Bachelor stated that Mr. Edison was in the 
city for the day, and would return to Orange that 
night. He had no idea how it was that such insane 
dispatches had been cabled from abroad, but thought 
that some one had been impersonating Mr. Edison 
in the French capital and had imposed himself upon 
the President." 

The sequel to this story never appeared. Un- 
doubtedly some one had endeavoured to pass himself 
off as Edison, but as soon as it became known that 

20 



290 IN EUROPE 

the inventor had not left Orange, the French papers 
made a joke of the matter and no action was taken. 
The impostor, who ever he was, did not go to the 
extent of " touching " the President for a loan, and 
therefore his object in passing himself off as some 
one else was not very clear. Mr. Edison laughed 
when he heard the stories, but did not consider it 
worth while to make inquiries regarding them when 
he did reach Paris. He thought the President might 
feel sore on the subject. 

A brief description of Mr. Edison's exhibit at the 
Paris Exposition of 1889 may not be without interest, 
for many readers possibly did not see it, while those 
who had that good fortune will not be averse to 
recalling the wonders of the great electrical display. 
The exhibits of Edison were classed as follows : Tele- 
graphic, telephonic, phonographic, physical electric 
lighting, underground conductors, the manufacture 
of incandescent lamps, electric motors, and the 
magnetic separation and analysis of metals. 

The most striking feature of the display was a 
monster incandescent lamp, 40 feet high and mounted 
on a pedestal 20 feet square. The American flag 
was shown in red, white, and blue lamps on one side, 
the French escutcheon on the other, while in front 
the flags of the two republics with the name 
"Edison" above, and the date, "1889," below, 
appeared ; all these features were made of opalescent 
electric lamps. Twelve steps of vari-coloured lamps 
led to the top of the pedestal where there was 
a niche in which was placed a bust of the inventor 
surrounded by tiny lamps. The pedestal was sur- 
mounted by a perfect model of the standard Edison 
lamp and socket magnified 20,000 times. In other 
words, the great lamp was composed of 20,000 perfect 



INVENTION AT PARIS EXPOSITION 291 

i6-c.p. lamps which, although not lit, acted as a 
medium through which the light of the immense 
carbon might shine. 

Inside the base was the switchboard where an 
operator was stationed, and who could produce 
varied and dazzling effects by the quick manipulation 
of the switches. The different devices were indepen- 
dent of the others, but could be lighted in rapid 
succession, and the crowd was never tired of watching 
the bottom light run up the base, step by step, and 
illumine the various designs until it reached the 
carbon of the great lamp above. 

In front of this monument were arranged tables 
on which were set out working models of many of 
Edison's most famous inventions, including the 
duplex and quadruplex telegraphs, the phonoplex, 
stock telegraph, printing telegraph, automatic tele- 
graph and perforator, the harmonic telegraph, &c. 
There were also shown in other parts of the 
Machinery Hall voltmeters and indicators, galvano- 
meters, the pyro-magnetic motor and generator, the 
vote recorder, the water-bridge, etheroscope, odoro- 
scope, electric pen, vocal engine, megaphone, and 
many other wonderful inventions. In the room con- 
taining these models an operator sat at a type-setting 
and distributing machine, setting up matter from a 
phonograph, which was afterwards printed by a press 
run by an electric motor. 

Besides all these interesting things there were 
shown the Edison system of underground conductors, 
a sectional view of Edison tubes laid in place and 
connected, comprising feeders, mains, taps, junction 
and distributing boxes — in fact the whole para- 
phernalia necessary to the correct working of a 
genuine electrical central station. The methods 



292 IN EUROPE 

adopted in the manufacturing of the tubes were also 
shown. The dynamo plant installed comprised a 
complete three-wire system run from 500-light 
machines ; also a No. 56 dynamo having a capacity 
of 2,500 lights, and a 1,200-volt dynamo running the 
100 big lamps surrounding the entire exhibit. The 
working of the Edison meter system was also 
exhibited, together with a magnetic ore separator in 
operation, showing the crushing of the quartz and the 
separation of the ore from the silicates by means of 
powerful magnets. A glass case which attracted 
universal attention was one containing, besides 
specimens of every incandescent electric lamp made, 
a wonderful collection of bamboos, fibres, &c., used 
in the manufacture of the filaments. 

But more popular even than the electrical display 
was the " Phonographic Temple," where dozens of 
machines speaking every European language were 
a constant source of delight and astonishment to the 
thousands who crowded around them, all anxious to 
hear their own native tongues. There was a small 
pavilion where visitors could make records for them- 
selves, and afterwards experience the novelty of 
hearing their own voices. It must be remembered 
that there were thousands who had never heard 
a phonograph before, and so some idea can be 
obtained of the interest which this Phonographic 
Temple created. The mechanism of the machine 
was explained by operators who spoke in several 
languages, and, for the benefit of those who desired 
to know more of the wonderful " talking machine " 
than that to be obtained from a brief description, 
lectures were delivered by various scientific experts 
at different hours of the day and night. 

It is little to be wondered at, therefore, if after 



EDISON AND THE FIGARO 293 

exhibiting so many wonders, Edison's arrival in the 
French capital created excitement. He was more 
popular, more mobbed, more run after than all the 
royal visitors put together. And his striking per- 
sonality pleased the crowds who constantly broke 
into cheering when it was known that he was paying 
the Exposition a visit and his form was recognised. 
Mr. Edison was accompanied by his wife, and Miss 
Marion Edison, the inventor's eldest daughter. Every 
scientific society in the capital gave a dinner in 
honour of the celebrated inventor, and the Munici- 
pality of Paris presented him with a banquet which 
was attended by every notable person in the city. 
The Figaro gave him a great dinner at which nearly 
all the theatrical artistes and litterateurs in France 
were in attendance. In his speech, the Editor said : 
" Never can a sufficient tribute of honour be paid to 
him who, by the telephone, transports speech from 
pole to pole ; who, by the phonograph, repeats to our 
ears the blessed words of dear dead ones, giving them 
to us with their charm of intonation ; who has illumi- 
nated the world with a new and dazzling light. He 
has merited well of all countries." 

Some years previous to this, however, the Figaro 
came out with a somewhat remarkable description of 
Mr. Edison and one of his inventions, and in the course 
of a long and startling article it solemnly declared 
that Mr. Edison did not " belong to himself" " He 
is the property," so the writer said, " of the telegraph 
company, which lodges him in New York at a 
superb hotel, keeps him on a luxurious footing, and 
pays him a formidable salary, so as to be the one to 
know of and profit by his discoveries. The company 
has, in the laboratory of Edison, men in its employ 
who do not leave him for a moment, at the table, 



294 IN EUROPE 

on the street, in the workshop. So that this wretched 
man, watched as never was a malefactor, cannot give 
a second's thought to his personal affairs without 
one of his guards saying, * Mr. Edison, of what are 
you thinking?'" 

This interesting description was copied into a 
good many American papers, and created much 
fun among Mr. Edison's associates and those ac- 
quainted with him. A few days after the translation 
appeared, a Cincinnati paper came out with the 
following account of the " Wizard," which in turn 
was copied in several French journals. Its sarcasm, 
however, was probably lost on those readers who 
had read and digested the Figaro article : — 

" Edison, the phonograph man, is wretched unless 
he invents half a dozen things every day. He does 
it just for amusement when regular business is not 
pressing. The other day he went out for a little 
stroll, and before he had gone a square he thought 
out a plan for walking on one leg so as to rest the 
other. 

" He hailed a milk wagon and told the driver 
of a little invention that had popped through his 
head just that moment for delivering milk without 
getting out of the wagon or even stopping his 
horses. A simple force pump, with hose attached, 
worked by the foot, would do the business. Milk- 
men who dislike to halt for anything in their mad 
career, because it prevents them running over as 
many children as they might otherwise do, would 
appreciate this improvement. Edison isn't sure but 
that sausage and sauerkraut could be delivered in the 
same way. 

" He then stepped into a hotel office, and, observing 
the humiliation which guests encounter in seeking 



A DINNER ON THE EIFFEL TOWER 295 

to obtain information from the high-toned clerk, he 
sat down in the reading-room, and in five minutes 
had invented a hotel clerk to work by machinery, 
warranted to stand behind the counter any length 
of time desired, and answer all questions with 
promptness, correctness, and suavity — diamond pin 
and hair parted in the middle, if desired. 

" Lounging into the billiard-room he was struck 
with the endless amount of cushions to each table. 
Quick as lightning he thought of a better and more 
economical plan — cushion the balls. He immediately 
pulled out a postal card and wrote to Washington 
applying for a patent. 

" When Edison started to go out he had to pass 
the barber shop of the hotel, and as he did so he 
sighed to think that, with all his genius and creative 
imagination, he could never hope to equal the knight 
of the razor as a talking machine. This saddened 
him, so he went home and invented no more that 
day." 

But to return to Paris. The French Society of 
Civil Engineers gave a dinner for Mr. Edison on 
the first landing of the Eiffel Tower. The builder 
of the great structure was in the chair, and at the 
close of the many speeches delivered in honour of 
the distinguished guest, M. Eiffel suggested that 
coffee should be taken in his private room on the 
highest landing of the tower, to which the public 
was not admitted. Elevators took the guests to the 
room, which was large and commodious, easily 
accommodating the seventy-five gentlemen who 
made up the party. Among the guests was M. 
Gounod, who sang and played for Mr. Edison's 
especial benefit, and afterwards composed a piece of 
music which he sent as an autograph to Mrs. Edison, 



296 IN EUROPE 

who had expressed a desire for the famous com- 
poser's sig'iiatiire. M. Eiffel, not to be outdone, 
wrote on a slip of paper, " Notre belle journt§e serait 
complete si nous avions en le plaisir d'avoir avec 
nous Madame et Mademoiselle Marion Edison," 
and sent it with his compliments. 

Before he left Paris a gold medal was struck in 
honour of the inventor, and Mr. Edison acknow- 
ledi^ed the kindnesses which had been showered upon 
him by drawing a cheque to be given to the poor. 
Mr. Edison had thought that possibly he might have 
received some valuable suggestions in electricity 
while abroad, but he was disappointed. Apparently 
there was nothing any one else could teach him in 
that line. He was interested, and somewhat amused, 
to discover that scientific men abroad were greatly 
surprised that he was not more of a scientist in the 
higher sense of the phrase. They could not under- 
stand that he was between the scientific man and the 
public, as it were. However, their admiration for 
him was none the less. 

On his return Mr. Edison thus humorously de- 
scribed his experiences in Paris : " Dinners, dinners, 
dinners, all the time," he said. " But in spite of 
them all they did not get me to speak. Once 
I got Chauncey Depew to make a speech for 
me, and I got Reid, our Minister there, to make 
three or four. I could never get used to so many 
dinners. At noon I would sit down to what they 
called deycuftcr. That would last until nearly three 
o'clock, and a few hours later would come a big 
dinner. It was terrible. I looked down from the 
Eirtel Tower on the biggest dinner I ever saw, given 
to the Mayors of Erance by the Municipality of 
Paris. I saw 8,900 people eating at one time. I ate 



A WELCOME TO HEIDELBERG 297 

one American dinner while abroad, given by * Buffalo 
Bill.' Depew, Reid, John Hoey, and lots of other 
Americans were invited. We had, among other 
things American, an immense pie, Boston baked 
beans, and peanuts. John Hoey had brought some 
water melons, which we ate. Now I feel I must 
starve for a few months in order to get straight 
again after all those dinners. I wonder they didn't 
kill me." 

From Paris Mr. Edison visited other European 
cities, where he was accorded an equally enthusiastic 
reception. At Heidelberg the German Association 
of Advanced Scientists gave a dinner in his honour 
at which twelve hundred guests sat down. The 
Grand Duke of Baden was there with all his guards, 
and delivered an address through the phonograph 
in German. He was gifted with a powerful voice, 
and the phonograph repeated his words in such clear 
and thrilling tones that the speech was heard and 
understood by hundreds of people who were standing 
outside. In Heidelberg the inhabitants go to bed 
at 10 o'clock as a rule, but on that occasion the 
" Advanced Scientists " were still making merry at 
3 a.m. 

While in Italy Mr. Edison was feted with equal 
enthusiasm, and he received letters of commendation 
from King Humbert and Queen Marguerita for his 
phonograph, which Chevalier Capello had exhibited 
before them. It was on this occasion that the report 
was circulated that Edison had been made a Count 
by the Italian monarch. So persistent was this 
rumour, and so eagerly was it believed in America, 
that when Mr. Edison returned to his native country 
he and his wife were addressed as " Count and 
Countess Edison," to their amusement and embarrass- 



298 IN EUROPE 

ment. The inventor said that the story was first 
circulated by a French reporter, who took the 
personal letters of the King and Queen to mean a 
title at the very least. 

Mr. Edison then crossed over to England and paid 
a brief visit to London, where he was the recipient 
of a very hearty welcome. The Lord Mayor enter- 
tained him at the Mansion House, and various 
dinners were given in his honour. One of the 
British institutions which Mr. Edison tried was the 
beer, and it didn't agree with him at all. He after- 
wards declared that it sank to the bottom of one's 
stomach and there stayed for an indefinite period. 
" It must be a good thing to ballast ships with," he 
said on one occasion with a smile. 

One of the things in London that surprised Edison 
was the obvious fact that the Metropolitan and Dis- 
trict railway trains were not driven by electricity. 
" Nothing could be simpler," he protested, " than to 
substitute electricity for steam." He had offered 
to do it long ago, and stated that if he got the 
order then he could carry it out " almost off hand." 
And he gave to a reporter a glowing picture of what 
the underground would be without its steam and its 
choking sulphur fumes. " The underground atmo- 
sphere," said Edison, "must be bad for the lungs. 
With an electric motive force there would be no 
more smoke. And the motion of the trains would 
keep the air of the tunnels pure. The companies 
might also light them with electric lights through- 
out." Those remarks were made by Edison nearly 
twenty years ago. How long was it before London 
took the advice of the man who knew what he was 
talking about ? 



CHAPTER XX 

HOME LIFE 

MR. EDISON'S home life is an exceptionally 
happy one. He lives in a beautiful house 
called " Glenmont," in Llewellyn Park, at the foot 
of the Orange Mountain, with his wife and children. 
This residence Mr. Edison purchased soon after his 
second marriage in 1886, though at the time he 
scarcely had the intention of occupying quite so 
large a house. It happened, however, that " Glen- 
mont," which had been built at a cost of an immense 
sum of money, as well as an expenditure of much 
artistic effort, was placed on sale to satisfy the 
creditors of the absconding owner, and the inventor 
bought the place outright — house, furniture, library, 
artistic treasures, which it had taken ten years to 
collect, thirteen acres of park and garden, an acre 
of glass houses, several horses and cows, and a 
well-filled poultry run. At the time Mr. Edison, 
in showing his newly-purchased paradise to a friend, 
said, " It's a great deal too nice for me, but — well, 
it isn't half nice enough for the little wife here," 
placing his hand gently on the arm of the beautiful 
girl who stood beside him. 

The house — a handsome structure of brick and 
wood — belongs to the Queen Anne period of archi- 

299 



300 HOME LIFE 

tecture, and was built with a view to comfort as 
well as elegance. The porch, covered with purple 
wistaria in the spring, is massive in its proportions 
and hospitable in appearance. Inside is the comfort 
one finds in an old English country house. The 
square hall is furnished with oak tables, a finely- 
designed open fireplace, where in winter a log fire 
is always burning, and cosy window seats generous 
with soft cushions. Japanese jars filled with flowers 
from hot-house and garden occupy every corner, and 
the air is laden with the odour of blossoms. At night 
the hall is illuminated by electric lights cunningly 
concealed, which produce a soft glow infinitely pre- 
ferable to the brilliance of the more usual cluster 
of incandescent lamps. On the east wall hangs 
the original of Andersen's famous " Le matin apres 
le bal." 

To the right of the hall is the library, full of nooks 
and corners, where readers may pass the hours in 
quietude with their favourite authors. One entire 
side of the room is taken up by an immense fire- 
place, furnished with old-fashioned andirons, while 
the logs are piled high, ready for the cold weather 
or a chilly evening. Though the room is lighted by 
a double window there is a certain sombreness about 
the apartment, partly due to the outside vegetation, 
and partly to a third window of stained glass through 
which the light filters in a rather solemn and religious 
way. Dante's head glows from this window, which 
was designed by Mr. Edison, who is a great admirer 
of the Italian author's writings. A bronze bust of 
Edison stands on one of the small tables, and a 
bronze equestrian group between the two windows. 
The room is distinctly a library — plain and severe — 
and its principal furnishing consists of books. You 



EDISON'S APPRECIATION OF DUMAS 301 

will not find a great number of scientific works here, 
for they are kept down at the laboratory, but those 
dealing with modern thought are numerous. The 
works of the standard authors of England, America, 
and France occupy the shelves of Mr. Edison's home 
library, for the inventor likes to vary his reading 
at times by a masterpiece of Dumas or Scott or 
Hawthorne. 

Whenever his wife recommends him a book, and 
Mr. Edison is in the humour for reading an un- 
scientific work, he will commence it right away and 
not lay the volume down until it is finished. He is 
not a very quick reader, but absorbs what he reads 
very thoroughly. For Dumas's works he has a very 
great admiration, and he thinks " The Count of Monte 
Christo " probably the finest romance that was ever 
penned. He read it fifteen years ago and under 
somewhat interesting circumstances. One evening, 
on returning from the laboratory, his mind busy with 
some problem which defied solution, the inventor 
entered his library, closed the doors, and walked 
up and down for hours trying to solve the difficulty. 
Finally Mrs. Edison entered the room, and with 
a desire to divert her husband's thoughts she picked 
up the first book that came to her hand and inquired 
of the inventor, " Have you read this ? " He stopped 
in his walk and looked at the title. It was " The 
Count of Monte Christo." Opening the book a 
moment, Edison answered, " No, I never have. Is 
it good ? " Mrs. Edison declared that it was a great 
work, and she was sure he would enjoy it. " All 
right," he replied, " I guess I'll start right away." 
He settled himself comfortably, and a moment later 
was absorbed in the fascinating story. He read on 
and on and through the night and never laid the 



302 HOME LIFE 

book aside until the sun shone through the window. 
Then he took his hat and went down to the 
laboratory, and after many hours solved the difficulty 
which had been worrying him. When he returned 
home he declared that " The Count of Monte 
Christo " was a fine fellow, and had certainly aided 
him in discovering a solution to a very difficult 
problem. After that he always took Mrs. Edison's 
advice with regard to fiction. 

One of Edison's favourite authors was Gaboriau, 
and he was very sorry when that king of detective 
stories died. What pleased Edison with regard to 
this writer was the fact that he didn't waste any time 
getting down to business. The story was commenced 
at once, there were no irritating preliminaries, you 
became absorbed in a very intricate plot from the 
first page. Another favourite is Edgar Allen Poe, 
and he derived considerable pleasure from reading 
" The Murder of the Rue Morgue," and " Arnheim." 
Among less exciting writers he has a fondness for 
Ruskin and Dickens. Flammarion and Jules Verne 
he has read over and over again. 

But to return to "Glenmont." Mrs. Edison's 
drawing-room, on the side of the hall opposite to the 
library, is a beautiful and spacious apartment with an 
archway in the centre supported by onyx pillars. 
The hangings are crimson and the furniture carved 
rosewood. A grand piano stands at one corner, and 
near it is a comfortable easy-chair where Mr. Edison 
very often sits while his wife plays to him from his 
favourite composer — Beethoven. No music, appeals 
to Edison like that of Beethoven, and the very name 
of the composer will bring into his eyes an expression 
very much resembling adoration. Edison at one 
time played the violin himself, but put it aside when 



THE "DEN" AT GLENMONT 303 

he found it was occupying rather more of his time 
than he could very well spare. He also sang, and 
had a good voice, but experimenting in acoustics 
affected his larynx and he soon gave up all attempts 
in vocal music. He still finds, however, some of his 
greatest happiness in listening to the performance of 
other musicians. 

The dining-room, on the same floor, is simply and 
severely furnished ; the sideboard, occupying a recess 
facing the window, displays one or two pieces of 
silver only. Mr. Edison probably spends less time 
in this room than any other in the house, for he is 
not fond of remaining long at his meals. 

The most interesting room in the house is on the 
second floor, and generally known as Mr. Edison's 
" den." It is a big room, with a great window at 
one end looking over the Jersey Hills. There are 
interesting portraits on the walls — portraits of Edison 
when he was a little fellow of four in a plaid dress, 
and when he was a newsboy on the Grand Trunk. 
And at one end of the room a small alcove is devoted 
to photographs of the inventor taken at different ages 
— a sacred spot which is guarded jealously by Mrs 
Edison. There are two special portraits, one show- 
ing the inventor in his favourite holland " over-all, 
which is his wife's favourite portrait, and the other 
taken when a young man of twenty-four or so, at the 
time when he was, as he says, a " hustler " of the 
most hustling kind. This photograph is the favourite 
one of the inventor himself 

Then there is a business-like looking roll-top desk 
where Edison sits occasionally and replies to his 
private correspondence — where he writes to his 
daughter Madelyn, at Bryn Mawr College, or to a 
particular friend. On his desk are portraits of his 



304 HOME LIFE 

wife and his children — a particularly charming one 
of his daughter with her chin on her hand and her 
father's serious expression in her eyes. Above the 
desk are two interesting items of Edison's early 
days : a copy of the paper he published on the train 
and a bill for ten dollars signed by Edison about the 
same period of his life. There is also a " tin-type " 
of the inventor, which is some forty-eight years old, 
and shows the boy in a jersey and cap, and wearing 
that engaging, frank smile which always attracted 
strangers. 

In another corner of the room, beneath a strong 
electric lamp, is a comfortable easy chair furnished 
with a reading-desk on which are a couple of books. 
This is where Mr. Edison invariably sits after 
dinner and smokes a cigar or a couple of cigars 
and— thinks. One of the books is a treatise on 
chemistry, while the other is an ordinary exercise 
book about half an inch thick and contains a hundred 
or more pencil drawings made by the inventor him- 
self It is one of Mr. Edison's note-books, though 
not strictly speaking a " notion " book. The little 
volume contains diagrams of inventions already 
conceived, and some of them are very carefully 
drawn. Seldom does an evening pass without Mr. 
Edison contributing some drawing to his note-book, 
for, as a rule, his pencil is as active as his brain. He 
loves to explain his meaning with a pencil illustration, 
and when he is doing this for a visitor it always 
amuses him to hear the inevitable request, " Oh, 
Mr. Edison, would you mind signing this and 
putting the date ? " There must be a great number 
of these interesting autographs in existence. 

In this room is a large glass case containing Mr. 
Edison's collection of medals and decorations. Few 



THE ALBERT MEDAL 305 

men have had more honours of the kind showered 
upon him during his life, and though he treasures 
them a good deal for what they represent he places 
little value on the medals themselves. This was 
shown a few years ago when some one called and 
asked the inventor if he would allow his decorations 
and medals to be put on exhibition. Mr. Edison 
had no objection, if any one were sufficiently inter- 
ested in them — which he very much doubted. The 
case was produced, but Edison had lost the key. It 
was not to be found so the box was forcibly opened. 
Then a greater difficulty still presented itself. The 
visitor wished for some description of the different 
medals, and wanted to know for what each particular 
trinket had been awarded. And Edison couldn't help 
him ! He had totally forgotten the circumstances 
under which he had received at least half his 
honours, and no effort on his part could recall the 
facts. So they were all put back in the case and, 
though they were subsequently shown, the exhibit 
was hardly as interesting as it might have been. 

But among the medals in Mr. Edison's den are one 
or two which deserve a word. There is, for instance, 
the Albert Medal, which was presented to Mr. Edison 
by the Prince of Wales in honour of his father, the 
Prince Consort. With the medal is a series of letters, 
including one from the Prince, and one from Sir 
Julian Pauncefote, who took the medal to America. 
The latter is a document showing much grace of 
composition and quite Chesterfieldian in style. The 
third communication is from Secretary of State Foster, 
and amused Mr. Edison not a little when he received 
it. The medal was entrusted to Mr. Foster for de- 
livery to Mr. Edison, and after informing the latter 
of his charge and explaining how delighted he 

21 



3o6 HOME LIFE 

was to present the medal he concludes by saying 
that Mr. Edison can have it '*by paying express 
charges." 

There are also among these medals the three de- 
grees of the Legion of Honour — Chevalier, Officeur, 
and Commander. The highest degree was conferred 
on the inventor during the Paris Exposition of 
1889, when he paid his memorable visit to the 
French capital. At about the same time a cable 
was sent to the States announcing that Edison had 
been created a count by the King of Italy. The 
democratic nation was flattered at the honour con- 
ferred upon their countryman, but of course hoped 
the inventor would refuse the title. The rumour 
was incorrect, and when Edison returned after his 
European tour, the first thing the reporters asked 
was, whether he were really a count, and much to 
the disappointment of the interrogators he replied 
that he was not. " But," said Edison apologetically, 
as some of those present seemed rather hurt that 
he hadn't received a title, " I've come back decorated 
with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour of 
France. I have been made Commander, the highest 
title they confer on a foreigner." Then, with a smile, 
he added : " When I first exhibited the old phono- 
graph over there, France made me a Chevalier of the 
Leeion of Honour. At the time of the electrical ex- 
hibition they advanced me a grade, making me an 
Officeur. This summer they raised the ante again 
[Edison plays poker] and made me a Commander, 
I believe they call it. At all events, it's the highest 
decoration of the Legion of Honour. Over in France 
they think a great deal of these decorations. A great 
many privileges go with them. The Minister of 
Foreign Affairs s^ave me this one through Ambas- 



COMMANDER OF LEGION OF HONOUR 307 

sador Reid, sending a very nice letter with it. At 
Mr. Reid's house they wanted to put the ribbon 
and cross around my neck, but I would not have it 
there." 

The " very nice " letter to which Edison referred 
is kept in the case with the decorations and, trans- 
lated, is as follows : — 

" Sir, — I have the honour of announcing that, upon 
my suggestion, the President of the Republic desires 
to confer upon you the Cross of a Commander of 
the National Order of the Legion of Honour. In 
awarding you to-day this high distinction, the Gov- 
ernment of the Republic wishes to recognise the 
services, exceptional in every sense of the word, 
which you have rendered to science by your mar- 
vellous inventions, all of which have been admired 
and envied by the visitors, French and foreign, to 
the Champs de Mars. We are happy in offering 
to you a souvenir of your visit to Paris and your 
participation in the national exhibition in which the 
great Republic of the United States has taken so 
brilliant a place, thus proving again the indis- 
soluble ties which attach it to France. 

" You, yourself. Sir, in becoming our visitor have 
endeavoured to ally yourself with these sentiments 
of cordial sympathy. It is particularly agreeable to 
me in recognising this fact, to assure you of our appre- 
ciation of it. Accept, Sir, the assurance of my 
highest consideration. 

" Spuller." 

Many other decorations, medals, and interesting 
letters does the case contain, but they are seldom 
taken out unless a visitor expresses a special desire 



3o8 HOME LIFE 

to see them. Mrs. Edison looks after them, keeps 
the trinkets in order, and is proud of them, but were 
it not for her care the probability is that they would 
have been lost or stolen long ago. 

Mrs. Edison's boudoir is a pretty and home-like 
room, furnished in light colours, contains plenty 
of books, and is always generously supplied with 
flowers. Many portraits hang upon the walls, pro- 
minent among them being those of her father and 
husband, and, of course, several photographs of her 
children taken at different periods of their lives. 
The windows command most magnificent views of 
the Orange Valley, and the room is so bright and 
cheerful that Mrs. Edison and her children spend 
a great deal of their time here. From this room a 
door leads to Mrs. Edison's bedroom, another pretty 
apartment, containing many interesting pictures and 
photographs. There is a portrait of Mr. Edison 
at fourteen, another of Mrs. Edison at sixteen, 
and a very fine painting of the first Mrs. Edison. 
A door opens on to a roof garden, over which 
an awning is spread in summer and where many 
pleasant tea-parties are given. 

Of the other rooms in the house it is need- 
less to speak, for all are characterised by the same 
good taste and simplicity, whether it is a guest- 
chamber or little Theodore's play-room. The 
grounds are extensive, beautifully kept, shady with 
well-grown elms and other trees, contain croquet 
and tennis lawns, five or six glass-houses, pasture 
for several Alderney cows, and an extensive fowl- 
run. Mr. Edison keeps horses, but has no great 
fondness for them, as he regards the " friend of 
man " as a poor motor. As a matter of fact, both 
Mr. and Mrs. Edison are a little afraid of horses, 



MRS. EDISON 309 

each having been in one or two nasty accidents. 
Several motors are kept at the Glenmont garage, 
and Charles Edison, Mr. Edison's seventeen-year- 
old son, is an expert chauffeur. All the family are 
keen automobilists, and are by no means afraid of 
exceeding the speed limit, even Mrs. Edison herself 
delighting in covering the Jersey roads at thirty miles 
and more an hour. 

The present Mrs. Edison is the inventor's second 
wife, and still a young and very beautiful woman. She 
is the daughter of Lewis Miller, the founder and Presi- 
dent of the Chautauqua Assembly, who died in 1899. 
Mr. Miller was himself an inventor of considerable 
note, his reaping, binding, mowing, and thrashing 
machines being known to every farmer. He was 
also the founder of a model Sunday School, a mil- 
lionaire, and the father of ten sons. Mrs. Edison met 
the inventor in Akron, Ohio, the home of her father, 
and it is generally believed to have been a case of 
love at first sight. They were married within a year 
of the meeting. Mrs. Edison takes considerable in- 
terest in her husband's work, and she has watched 
the development of many of his inventions with 
considerable pride. She frequently goes down to 
the laboratory and has even assisted at an occa- 
sional experiment, much to the inventor's amuse- 
ment. Up to quite recently Mr. Edison would 
have his lunch at the laboratory, and Mrs. Edison 
either sent the basket, which she herself pre- 
pared, by a special messenger, or took it herself in 
the automobile. Now she generally calls for her 
absent-minded husband about 1.30 and insists upon 
him accompanying her back to the house, where the 
inventor enjoys a modest meal and afterwards 
smokes a cigar. He objected at first, but Mrs. 



310 HOME LIFE 

Edison, who has a will, was firm, and finally he 
laughingly capitulated, and now takes his meals 
more regularly. 

Of this happy union there are three children — 
Madelyn, a very pretty girl of eighteen, who is 
shortly to graduate from Bryn Mawr ; Charles, who 
is still at college; and Theodore, the pet of the 
family, who is not quite nine. The family life of 
this brilliant and simple man is an ideal one, and 
he has certainly reaped the reward of his labours 
in happiness and contentment, which are not always 
the lot of those who strive. 



CHAPTER XXI 

HIS PERSONALITY 

MANY readers doubtless know Edison best from 
the portrait published twenty years ago which 
shows him listening to the phonograph. Although 
taken so long since, the inventor still resembles this 
photograph to a remarkable degree. He is older, of 
course, but his face wears that same youthful ex- 
pression which will, without doubt, always be its 
chief characteristic whatever age he may reach. He 
is of medium height, powerfully and compactly built, 
and, when at work in his laboratory, usually wears 
a well-worn coat, much stained with chemicals, a 
pair of trousers which have seen better days, spotless 
linen, and an old-fashioned white string tie. His 
head is massive, the forehead high, and the deep-set 
grey eyes extraordinarily keen. Indeed, the latter 
are startlingly luminous, and, when he is interested, 
light up his entire face. The nose is straight, the 
mouth tender and humorous. He is somewhat deaf 
in his right ear, and, through constantly placing his 
hand behind the left orifice in order to catch what 
is being said, the organ has been pressed slightly 
forward. 

Edison does not regard his deafness as an affliction, 

and on more than one occasion he has declared that 

311 



312 HIS PERSONALITY 

it has saved him listening to much nonsense which 
could only have resulted in the waste of a lot of valu- 
able time. His wonderful powers of concentration 
have been ascribed to this partial deafness, and cer- 
tainly it has enabled him to pursue his investigations 
undisturbed in the midst of hammerings, conversation, 
and a hundred-and-one noises which might have dis- 
tracted him had he possessed unimpaired hearing. If 
Edison does not look upon this deafness as a blessing 
in disguise, he at all events regards it with that cheer- 
fulness which prevents it in any way detracting from 
his full enjoyment of life. People who know Edison 
well have declared that his deafness is more a 
psychological phenomenon than a physical con- 
dition, for he can very easily hear that which interests 
him while being perfectly oblivious to that which 
does not. Mr. Edison has always been a celebrity of 
especial interest to aurists, and many have called 
upon him firm in the belief that they could restore 
his hearing. One visited the Orange Laboratory quite 
recently, and after explaining a method which he 
declared would bring about a speedy cure, begged 
the inventor to submit himself to treatment. Mr. 
Edison, however, declined, and, being asked for a 
reason, said, " I am afraid you might succeed." And 
then, with his humorous smile, he added, " Supposing 
you did ? Think of the lot of stuff I'd have to listen 
to that I don't want to hear ! To be a little deaf has 
its advantages, and on the whole I prefer to let well 
enough alone." 

Apropos of his deafness a story is told illustrative 
of his ability to hear when least expected. A 
number of visitors had called at the laboratory, and 
though Edison, as usual, was extremely busy, he made 
them welcome, was polite and genial, and never 



EDISON'S SIMPLICITY 313 

expressed any irritability even when foolish questions 
were shouted at him in unnecessarily high-pitched 
keys. Every one had evidently been told that the 
inventor was very deaf and they adjusted their tones 
to suit a conversation which might have been carried 
on at a distance of a mile or so. Then the humorist 
of the party said to a companion in his ordinary 
voice, " I guess he would hear if we asked him to 
take a drink." Edison smilingly turned and, looking 
the young man squarely in the eye, he said, " Yes, 
perhaps I should ; but no, thank you, not to-day." 
Some one has described Mr. Edison as " thoroughly 
comfortable and undeniably human." It is a queer 
form of description, and yet it suits the inventor 
admirably. Those portraits or drawings which show 
him with head resting upon his hand, and a solemn, 
dreamy look in his eyes, are all wrong. Edison is 
the exact reverse of a dreamer, and always has been 
— he never gives himself time to dream, and his chief 
characteristics through life have been marvellous 
alertness, indomitable determination, and mercurial 
energy. His eyes are more often laughing with sup- 
pressed humour than solemn with thought. When he 
was a young man, and no one knew him, he was shy in 
disposition and seldom spoke of himself or his doings. 
When he became famous he did not "grow out of 
proportion to himself," but was the same simple, un- 
affected, human being that he had always been. He 
has about as much conceit and self-esteem as there is 
air in one of his own electric globes, and the thing he 
fears most in life is a " swelled head." His kindliness 
is unfailing, and he never loses his temper. No man 
in the laboratory has ever seen Edison " let himself 
go " ; and though his eyes may take on the sternness 
of a Napoleon, his anger never expresses itself out- 



314 HIS PERSONALITY 

wardly. One of his workmen declared to the writer 
that the thing that surprised him most about the 
" old man " (as he is called in all affection) was the 
way he kept his temper. " When he would lie down 
to take an hour's sleep," said this assistant, " after 
working, perhaps, on something for a couple of days 
or more, and, for some important reason, we had to 
wake him up, and nearly shake the life out of him in 
doing so, he never showed any irritability, but would 
merely tell us to ' go easy,' and not knock quite all 
the stuffing out of him." Probably if Edison had 
been born with less patience he would not have been 
enabled to accomplish so much, for temper uses up 
more energy than the most strenuous hard work. 

One of Edison's chief personal characteristics is a 
disregard for the conventionalities of dress. From 
the days when he spoiled a new suit with a bottle 
of chemicals he has had rather a contempt for fine 
clothes. " He's the poorest man at dressing," said an 
aggrieved assistant on one occasion, " that ever lived, 
and doesn't care what he wears. He'll buy a suit of 
clothes and come into the laboratory with it just as it 
came from the store, and the first thing he does is to 
throw the coat in a dusty corner and sit down where 
some chemicals have been spilt." Not so long ago 
Edison always wore a long linen duster — a masculine 
" Mother Hubbard," as some admirer once called it — 
and a dilapidated straw hat, but within recent years 
he has discarded both these articles of dress, and, 
greatly to his wife's relief, appears somewhat better 
clothed. But still, as telegraph operators, who regard 
Edison as one of themselves, are proud to state, the 
inventor is no " dude." He still wears mighty plain 
clothes, but they are less noticeable for hard usage 
than formerly. 



VIEWS ON CORRECT CLOTHING 315 

In spite of his peculiar ideas regarding dress, how- 
ever, Edison has theories about correct clothing and 
its bearing towards health which, coming from a 
thinking man, may very well be considered. He 
never wears an overcoat, for the simple reason that 
it fails lamentably to keep out the cold. The wind 
gets up the sleeves, he declares, and between the 
folds, rendering the garment useless as a protector 
against the attacks of an American winter. Much 
better, he says, to turn one's attention to the under- 
clothing. This, if properly made, will stick to the 
skin and defy the elements. If it is unreasonably 
cold Edison will wear a double set of undergarments, 
and if a death-dealing blizzard sets in he may put on 
a third, but he never gives in to the overcoat. More- 
over, his suits are all made of the same weight of 
cloth, summer and winter, and he never by any chance 
suffers from respiratory complaints. Whether this is 
due to his mode of dressing is, perhaps, a question, 
but the fact remains that on his trips to Florida he 
can take off his coat, roll it up for a pillow, and sleep 
on the wet grass without contracting a twinge of 
rheumatism or emitting a single sneeze. He has 
scarcely ever had a day's illness in his life, and he 
himself ascribes this happy state of affairs to common 
sense regarding dress and the capacity for hard work. 

Edison never wears a silk hat — even on Sundays — 
and on few occasions has he been known to carry 
a pair of gloves. Should he attend a dinner given 
especially in his honour, he does not appear in 
evening dress. Indeed, he has a particular aversion 
to this mode of costume, and nothing will persuade 
him to adopt it. Some years ago he so astonished 
the footman at a mansion where he had been invited 
to dinner by arriving in an ordinary Prince Albert 



3i6 HIS PERSONALITY 

that the man showed some reluctance to allowing 
him to enter. At the moment, however, the host 
came forward and smoothed things out by conducting 
the visitor to his room and summoning a valet. This 
man was also a little surprised at Edison's appearance, 
and delicately inquired if the inventor desired to 
dress, and if so, where he had left his dress-suit case. 
Edison replied that he was dressed already, and that 
he wouldn't detain the valet, who finally departed. 
Afterwards he sat down to dinner in his comfortable 
Prince Albert, and cracked jokes about the affair with 
his host and hostess. 

Edison has strong opinions regarding diet. He 
firmly believes that half the ills to which flesh is heir 
are due to incorrect and excessive eating. He him- 
self is very abstemious, and often does not consume 
a pound of food during the day. Yet he is no faddist 
regarding what he shall eat, taking everything he 
fancies, but in very small quantities. He believes in 
change of food, and declares that nature requires it, 
and so when he has been eating meat for any length 
of time, and begins to feel a little run down, he turns 
vegetarian for a spell, returning to meat again when 
he finds it is necessary. In this way any normal man 
or woman may keep in perfect health. In regard 
to wines and liquors Edison is equally abstemious. 
" Much liquor," he says, " is a bad thing for any one 
who wants to go through life and work in earnest. 
Unless taken in very moderate quantities it deadens 
all your nerves and makes you feel listless. A fellow 
in that fix isn't worth anything but to sit around and 
wait for the end to come. He just does everything 
mechanically." Total abstinence, however, does not 
appeal to Edison. He does not think it a good thing, 
and declares that total abstainers are usually pale, 




=i o 



o 



EDISON IN ENGLAND 317 

with sallow complexions and abnormally large 
shoulders, and have a greater tendency to con- 
sumption than people who take a little wine or spirit. 
A small quantity of " cordial" is not harmful ; it is 
only when taken in excess that the mischief is done. 
An occasional sip of champagne Edison enjoys, and 
he can even appreciate an occasional bottle of beer, 
but not the English kind, which is too heavy. With 
regard to smoking, he has never felt any ill effects 
from the habit, though at one time he consumed each 
day twenty of the strongest cigars he could obtain. 
If he had found that his nerves suffered he would have 
stopped smoking altogether, but he never experienced 
any inconvenience from them. To-day he smokes less 
than he used and his average is five a day — one 
after each meal and two in the evening. 

Eighteen years ago, when Edison was in England, 
he was interviewed regarding his ability to get 
through so much work, and he then ascribed his 
wonderful powers of endurance to correct diet and 
" sleeping when he wanted to." "If," he said, " I spend 
sixty hours at an invention, there must, naturally, be 
a loss of physical force, but I regain this by after- 
wards taking a slumber which may last from eighteen 
to twenty-four hours. In this way tired nature re- 
asserts herself, and both of us are satisfied." At that 
time Edison appealed strongly to the British inter- 
viewer, and during his visit was probably the most 
popular man with the Press that ever came to Eng- 
land's shores. He has known newspaper men so well 
throughout his life that he is more than ordinarily 
genial with them and ever ready to give all the 
information in his power. Said one English inter- 
viewer who spent an hour with him : — 

" It is worth going a long way to chat and shake 



3i8 HIS PERSONALITY 

hands with Edison. The greatest practical electrician 
that ever lived is not more interesting than the man 
himself. We can realise from the strong, resolute 
look how the boy, whose regular schooling scarcely 
extended to half a year, succeeded in educating 
himself by stray reading at newspaper stalls and 
haphazard studies in telegraphy at the railway sig- 
nalling station. With all its strength Mr. Edison's 
face wears a gentle expression. The suggestion 
of strength comes out when he is interested in a 
discussion and driving his argument home. A note- 
worthy characteristic of his face is the attractive 
smile and the mixture of shrewdness and kindliness 
of the gray eyes. There is no simpler, more open, 
more unaffected man than Edison living. He seems 
as if he had no notion that he was anybody in par- 
ticular. His shrewd, ready common sense is apparent 
even in the smallest things." 

Edison's greatest happiness is found in his 
laboratory and his home, for, though appearances 
seem against it, the inventor is rather a domestic 
kind of man. True, he does not care for social life, 
and it is only by great diplomacy on the part of 
Mrs. Edison that he can be persuaded to attend any 
functions or friendly gatherings. He does not like 
society, as the word is usually interpreted, but he 
is always glad to see interesting people — especially 
scientists — in his own home, and if his visitor is 
amusing and can tell good stories Edison is quite 
willing to stop up half the night or longer listening 
to them. The writer has a vivid recollection of 
calling upon Mr. Edison many years ago at the 
Orange Laboratory by appointment one morning at 
eleven o'clock, and being informed that the inventor 
had been up throughout the night and was then 



VISITORS TO THE LABORATORY 319 

sleeping. He had left instructions that he was to be 
called at ten, but Mrs. Edison had refused to disturb 
him, taking upon herself any risk which might attend 
the breaking of an engagement. Edison never moved 
an eyelash until three o'clock, when he awoke and 
got up, scolding every one within earshot for having 
let him sleep so long. He came down to the labora- 
tory accompanied by a Japanese friend in native 
costume, and apologised for the lateness of his 
appearance by explaining that the Oriental gentleman 
had kept him up until two in the morning telling 
funny stories. The Japanese, a highly cultured diplo- 
matist in the service of the Mikado, smiled with good 
humour and some pride, and declared that every- 
thing would have been all right and the appointment 
kept if Mr. Edison had not at two o'clock com- 
menced a full day's work and never gone to bed 
until eight. Hence the profoundness of his slumbers 
at the time when he should have been on his way to 
the laboratory. 

Visitors to the Edison Laboratory occasionally 
arrive in such numbers that unless they are well 
known to the inventor he finds it necessary to decline 
giving them an interview owing to something more 
pressing occupying his attention. Some of these 
visitors plaintively state that they have known " Tom 
Edison " since a boy, and they feel much aggrieved 
when the gateman informs them that it is impossible 
to see him that day. On one occasion a bond-fide 
friend who had known Edison from his childhood 
called at the laboratory with a companion, and was 
extremely offended when informed that Mr. Edison 
was very busy and could not receive visitors. 
" What ! " said the caller indignantly, " do you mean 
to say that Thomas Edison won't see me? Why, I 



320 HIS PERSONALITY 

have known him intimately all my life." " Oh, no, I 
don't say he won't see you," replied the man, " but 
Mrs. Edison waited here for two hours this morning 
and had to go away without seeing him, and I don't 
suppose you know him any better than she does." 
Edison is remarkably practical. This was shown 
years ago when he declared that he never wasted any 
of his time upon inventions which would not prove 
useful or which would not pay for the time spent 
in perfecting them. When the phonograph was in 
its infancy he was complimented by a well-known 
scientist upon the wonder he had achieved, when 
the inventor somewhat startled his admirer by reply- 
ing, " Yes, but it doesn't bring in any money." 
Another story illustrative of the practical side of his 
nature is also connected with the phonographic days. 
It was after he had made the cylinders of wax, and 
when a fine, delicate brush was necessary to keep 
them free from dust. The brush he used cost a 
dollar, and he made up his mind that it must be 
possible to obtain one equally serviceable for half the 
money or less. The hair, of course, had to be ex- 
ceedingly fine, so as not to scratch the record, and he 
had been told that what he required was costly, and 
a dollar was the lowest price at which the brushes 
could be manufactured. Edison thought otherwise, 
and after he had obtained specimens of hair from 
almost every known animal, he found that the red 
deer provided a hair so fine that it could scarcely be 
seen without the aid of a microscope. This was just 
what he had been looking for, and henceforth his 
phonograph brushes cost five cents instead of a 
dollar. On another occasion a visitor found Edison 
one Sunday morning deeply occupied with his 
phonographic dolls. One was in pieces beside him, 



A PRACTICAL INVENTOR 321 

and the inventor was busy scribbling figures and line 
diagrams in a pocket book. When asked to explain 
what he was busy on, Mr. Edison said — 

" The idea suddenly hit me at breakfast this morn- 
ing that I might cheapen the cost of this doll, and I 
couldn't rest till to-morrow to put my plan to the 
test. It occurred to me that I could make the frame- 
work that holds this tiny phonograph cheaper by 
changing its shape and thus saving metal. The 
change in shape will permit me to substitute a small 
brass screw for this large one, and so I can save 
several cents that way, too." 

From these little stories it must not be supposed 
that there is anything " close " about Edison. As a 
matter of fact he cares little for wealth, and when 
experimenting or perfecting a new invention he never 
sits down to consider the cost. If it should take his 
entire fortune to attain his end he would spend it, and 
never since he has had the handling of big sums has 
he allowed expenditure to stand in the way of success. 
Towards his workpeople he has always been known 
for his liberality and generosity. He believes in pay- 
ing a good man a good salary, in encouraging him 
by a liberal wage to give the best that is in him, in 
" raising " him as his usefulness increases. The 
employer who pays his men poor wages and then 
expects good results he considers a fool, and strikers 
under such circumstances have his sympathy. But 
he can be stern when he thinks he is being imposed 
upon, and when he knows himself to be in the right 
he can act with the grim determination of a Napo- 
leon. Years ago outside agitators got among his 
men employed at Edison, Morris County, and as a 
result eighty of his workpeople in the machine-room 
formulated a demand for time and a half for working 

22 



322 HIS PERSONALITY 

Saturday nights, and double time when Sunday work 
was necessary. A petition to this effect was drawn 
up and presented to Mr. Edison by a committee of 
four. His reply was that the rate of wages paid was 
liberal, but he would consider the matter. The com- 
mittee arbitrarily told him that he could have four 
days to decide. Then Edison's eyes lost their genial 
expression and took on a glint that indicated some 
of the determination which dominates him. He in- 
formed that committee he could reply immediately 
and give them all the summer to think it over. " Go 
back to Edison," he said, " and the reply will be 
there by the time you are." Mr. Edison then tele- 
graphed Superintendent Conly to close the works at 
once, as the demand, in view of the wages received, 
was unreasonable. The following morning the men 
returned in a body and begged to be taken back on 
the old footing, which was permitted. Since that day 
there has been no strike among Edison's employes. 

If the inventions of Edison are remarkable, he 
himself is no less a physical wonder. For forty- 
five years he has laboured incessantly regardless of 
the ordinary laws of nature. In the pursuit of some 
desired end time has been forgotten, sleep ignored, 
food left untouched, rest abandoned. Yet he has 
not suffered. To-day he looks twenty years younger 
than his age, and he can still work twenty or thirty 
hours at a stretch without feeling unduly fatigued. 
His juvenility is remarkable, and his capacity for 
recuperation is equally astonishing. Perhaps the 
secret of his tireless activity is his determination 
never to worry. " Don't worry," says Edison, " but 
work hard, and you can look forward to a reasonably 
lengthy existence — barring accidents, of course." 
Edison's passion for work has been likened to some 



EDISON IS ABSENT-MINDED 323 

men's love for strong drink, and the comparison is 
not at all bad. Recently the inventor stated one 
Saturday night that he intended to quit work for 
a spell, and his manager need not expect him for a 
few days. That manager smiled, for he had heard 
the same thing before. Monday morning at eight 
Edison was hard at work as usual. It is probably 
the only thing that the inventor cannot do — give up 
work, and until he can invent something to make the 
task easy he probably never will. 

Edison is absent-minded, and even now, when 
absorbed in any deep problem, matters of import- 
ance slip his memory very speedily, and if he were 
not reminded from time to time complications might 
arise. European celebrities frequently visit the labo- 
ratory at Orange, and Mr. Edison is always glad to 
see them, but more than once some idea has struck 
him while in conversation, and he has left them with 
a hurried word of apology, and, an hour later, he 
has been discovered hard at work in his chemical 
laboratory — everything and every one forgotten in 
the pursuit of some elusive clue. On one occasion 
at least he forgot his name. This was in the early 
days when he went to pay his taxes, and, as was cus- 
tomary then, got in line to await his turn. Moving 
on monotonously as the man ahead paid his dues and 
passed out, Edison became deeply absorbed in the 
mental solving of some problem, and by the time he 
reached the cashier's window he was oblivious to his 
surroundings. The clerk asked him his name. He 
looked blankly at the man, tried vainly to recollect 
his baptismal cognomen, and was about to pass out 
when the tax commissioner who was standing near 
and who knew him said, " Hullo, Mr. Edison," and 
memory returned. He afterwards declared that, had 



324 HIS PERSONALITY 

his life depended on giving his correct name he could 
not have done so. At one time he had serious 
thoughts of studying some memory system, but he 
never did, and consequently he is as forgetful to-day 
as ever he was. 

The following incident is another good example of 
Mr. Edison's occasional lapses into absent-minded- 
ness, and has the additional interest of being vouched 
for by one of his co-workers. During his experi- 
mental work in connection with the invention of the 
incandescent electric light system, when the inventor 
had been up several nights in succession and was 
very much worn out, he entered one of the work- 
rooms at four o'clock in the morning (having pre- 
viously left instructions to be called at nine, when 
breakfast was to be brought to him) and was soon 
locked in profound slumber. Meanwhile one of his 
co-workers — Mr. Bachelor, I believe — had arranged 
to have breakfast in the same room at 8.30, and when 
he came in and saw the inventor peacefully taking a 
much needed rest, the idea of playing a joke upon 
him came as an inspiration. So, learning from the 
young man who brought in his meal that Mr. Edison's 
breakfast would be ready at nine, at which time he, 
the young man, would arouse the " boss," Mr. 
Bachelor leisurely proceeded with his meal and read 
the paper. At nine o'clock the assistant, prompt to 
time, entered to awaken his master. After a good 
deal of shaking and pummelling — for Edison is 
rather a heavy sleeper — the " old man " got up and 
sat down to the table to await the coming of his 
breakfast, which, the youth declared, was "on the 
way." It took a few minutes, however, and during 
the interval the inventor was so sleepy that he dozed 
off again. Then, when it finally did arrive, Bachelor 



A WONDERFUL MEMORY 325 

quietly appropriated it and put in its place the debris 
of his own meal. A moment later Edison awoke, 
gazed at the fragments before him, looked into the 
empty cup, thought a moment, and then, taking out 
a cigar, he lit it and proceeded to enjoy his usual 
" after-meal " smoke, quite content in the belief that 
he had eaten his breakfast and forgotten all about 
it. When his co-worker enlightened him on the 
point he gave an amused grin and merely remarking, 
" Well, that's one on me " (a favourite expression of 
his), he proceeded to do good justice to a substantial 
meal. He afterwards declared that though it never 
occurred to him that he hadn't eaten anything, he 
certainly had an inward feeling that he could have 
done with another breakfast. 

Though Edison thus suffers from absent-minded- 
ness, in common with many other great men, he is 
possessed of a memory which is remarkable for its 
keenness. He can keep in mind a dozen inventions, 
and remember the smallest details in connection with 
each without any effort at all. Moreover, in his ex- 
periments he frequently hits upon some phenomena 
which, while of no use to him at the time, are remem- 
bered for future inventions, and invariably taken 
advantage of. This has clearly been shown in con- 
nection with the telephone, the phonograph, and the 
chalk battery, to which reference was made in earlier 
chapters. He has a well-stored mind, the capacity 
for absorbing knowledge is strong with him, and he 
never forgets a principle once learned. He is said to 
have thoroughly digested the substance of his entire 
library, comprising what is probably the most com- 
plete collection of scientific books in the world, and 
is more familiar with past and present literature 
dealing with science than any other man living. He 



326 HIS PERSONALITY 

is also extraordinarily quick to catch on to the prin- 
ciples of a thing. Years ago some English capitalists 
visited the States to see if they couldn't organise a 
typewriter trust, and they thought it would be a good 
plan to interest Mr. Edison in the matter. So they 
went out to the laboratory and took all their legal 
documents with them, hoping that he would pass 
judgment on them. At the time Edison knew 
nothing whatever about typewriters, and he asked if 
there was any book that would enlighten him upon 
the subject. One of the men had just such a book in 
his pocket, and he handed it to the inventor. Mr. 
Edison glanced rapidly through it, spent about ten 
minutes over the work, and then surprised the experts 
by his knowledge of the subject. Had they come 
about flying machines or incubators or submarines it 
would have been the same. Given a comprehensive 
book on the subject, Edison would have grasped the 
principles with the same facility and rapidity as any 
one else would have turned the pages, but he takes 
no credit to himself for this faculty. " It is partly a 
gift," he explains, " and partly cultivation. It is 
wonderful how one can accustom oneself to absorbing 
facts when necessary. Most people could do it if 
they wished." 

One writer recently said of Edison, " He has a 
most retentive memory and enough imagination, but 
not too much, for practicality. Imagination in an 
inventor is a dangerous quality. An inventor must 
have it, but if he has too much of it he is sure to 
become a dreamer. That is where Edison is strong ; 
he has just the requisite amount of imagination to 
make him conceive great things, yet not enough 
to make him a dreamer. He is astonishingly 
practical in all his ideas." Few dreamers possess 



NEVER FORGETS A FACE 327 

retentive memories, for dreams themselves are but 
fleeting things. Edison himself has no use for a 
dreamer, and none has ever found a footing in his 
laboratory. All must be "hustlers," though they 
may never hope to " hustle " as Edison does ; people 
who " hustle " generally remember things. 

Edison never forgets a face. He will regard a man 
newly introduced with great keenness, and after that 
his features apparently are indelibly impressed upon 
his brain. At a recent dinner given in Edison's 
honour, the most striking thing in connection with 
it was the number of men who renewed their 
acquaintance with the inventor and found that he 
had not forgotten them. Guest after guest was 
brought up with scarcely a hope that Edison would 
recollect him, and went away marvelling at his 
memory for faces. A characteristic incident occurred 
when Marion H. Kerner, of the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company, was brought up by Mr. W. S. Logue, 
of Mr. Edison's staff. 

" I don't suppose you remember this man ? " said 
Mr. Logue, by way of introduction. 

Mr. Edison peered into his face. " To be sure I 
do," he replied promptly ; " it's Marion Kerner," and 
a cordial hand was extended. 

The two men had not met for thirty years or more, 
when both were experimenting in Sigmund Bergman's 
little shop in Wooster Street, where Mr. Edison found 
greater conveniences for working upon the phono- 
graph, then in the tin-foil record stage, and Kerner 
was working upon a burglar alarm system. After 
that the two men drifted apart, yet less than half a 
minute was required to bridge the gap of thirty years. 

This characteristic of Edison to remember faces 
was once the cause of an amusing incident which 



328 HIS PERSONALITY 

was related a short time since in the pages of a lead- 
ing New York daily — the Sun — and which I quote 
with the permission of the editor who conducts that 
world-famous paper. It has the additional value of 
being true, and on the occasion that the incident 
occurred no one enjoyed the joke more than Mr. 
Edison, who was the unconscious cause of much 
mental perturbation in the mind of at least one of 
the actors in the little comedy. 

" In a certain great machine manufacturing plant 
devoted to electrical appliances visitors are con- 
stantly being received from all quarters of the globe. 
The guides who take these visitors through the works 
have all kinds of experiences. It often happens that 
the visitor who knows the least about electrical 
matters will ask the stiffest questions and make the 
most disconcerting remarks. It is rather staggering, 
for instance, after you have made your clearest and 
most concise explanation of the phenomenon of 
electricity as you understand it, to be met with the 
comforting remark — 

" * After all, Mr. , you don't really know what 

electricity is ! ' 

" The average working electrician worries no more 
about the nature of the force he handles than he does 
about the doctrines of Confucius. One of the line- 
men demonstrates the idea by the recital of a past 
experience. 

" ' When I worked on a third rail at Hartford, the 
boss says : " You fellows don't care where the juice 
comes from or where it goes to ; all you care about 
is where to get it and where not to get it. So you, 
Hennesy, keep your crowbar off that third rail or 
you'll have a beautiful short circuit and a pirate- 
technical display that'll make you so blind that you'll 



EDISON AND THE FACTORY HAND 329 

not be able to tell bad whiskey from ice water for 
six months." 

" One engineer at the factory, who may be called 
Steve because his name is something else, is fre- 
quently detailed to take visitors about on account of 
his fund of information and his clear, lucid manner 
of explanation. On one occasion he escorted a 
guest from the West — a light-haired little gentleman, 
who seemed duly impressed with all he saw, but 
made no comment. He was apparently drinking 
in and criticising every word which young Steve 
uttered, and that usually confident gentleman grew 
nervous and suspicious. 

" ' This fellow,' he thought, * must be some smart 
electrician, and he is just taking all my statements 
with a huge grain of salt.' 

" At last, when they arrived back at the office, and 
Steve was feeling limp and tired, the little gentleman 
held out his hand and said — 

" * I am exceedingly obliged to you. I don't know 
much about the electrical trade. I am a barber. 
If you ever come to Chicago, look me up.' 

"Steve had recovered from this, and was beginning 
to look and feel like himself once more, when he was 
again detailed to escort a visitor through the works. 
This was a silent and undemonstrative man, who 
paid considerable attention to rather insignificant 
machines and details. Consequently, Steve rather 
hastily concluded that he had another barber to 
amuse. Moreover, as the quiet visitor showed little 
or no surprise at, or appreciation of, the many really 
remarkable machines and operations, Steve was 
aggrieved, and for the honour of the works deter- 
mined to shake some enthusiasm out of him. So he 
proceeded to load him up with many wonderful stories. 



330 HIS PERSONALITY 

" He pointed out a dynamo so powerful that it never 
had been and never could be run up to full capacity, 
it being utterly impossible to control the current. 
He gave a dissertation on the incandescent lamp 
and its manufacture, asserting that its discovery was 
due to the accidental observation of a lightning flash 
playing on a two-pronged fork in a pickle bottle. 
Waxing eloquent, he rose on his toes, stretched out 
his right arm, and exclaimed — 

" * And so, that inestimable boon to mankind, the 
incandescent lamp, was born ! ' 

" At this moment the visitor stepped up to a 
workman, who was winding coils, slapped him on 
the back, and said — 

" ' Hello, Dan ! ' 

" The man started, looked up, and his face flushed 
with surprise and pleasure as he grasped the out- 
stretched hand. 

" ' God bless my soul ! It's my old boss,' he 
exclaimed. * Mr. Edison, how are you ? ' 

" Steve staggered back and sat down on a casting. 
He tried to think it over, to recollect some of the 
stuff he'd been telling — but his mind was a blur. 
One thing only stood out distinctly ; he had told the 
* Wizard of Menlo Park,' the inventor of the incan- 
descent lamp, that it was the evolution of a pickle 
bottle and a two-pronged fork ! Then he dis- 
appeared. 

"A week or two later he received from Mr. Edison 
a book on electrical wonders, written for juveniles, 
on the fly-leaf of which was a pen drawing of a 
fork in a pickle bottle, and below, the inscription : 

" ' And so that inestimable boon to mankind, the 
incandescent lamp, was born.' Some time in the 
future perhaps, that little book may fetch a round 



UNSCIENTIFIC JOURNALISTS 331 

sum of money. At present no money could 
buy it." 

Edison himself occasionally likes to take a rise out 

of a visitor, but he would never let himself go to the 

extent that Steve did. It is, of course, but natural 

that many interviewers should call upon him whose 

acquaintance with electricity is not very profound. 

When this is the case — and Edison can tell in about 

two minutes whether a man knows a dynamo from 

a galvanic battery — the inventor is very considerate, 

and endeavours to make his language as untechnical 

as possible. Perhaps this has something to do with 

his immense popularity with newspaper men who 

all delight in getting an assignment to call at the 

laboratory. On one occasion, however, a particularly 

unscientific journalist was accorded a few minutes by 

Mr. Edison, the object of the visit being to " write 

up " a new and extremely intricate machine which 

the inventor had recently perfected. Mr. Edison 

was very anxious that the interviewer should get 

his facts correctly, and whenever he noticed a look 

of despair come into his visitor's face, he would pause 

and ask : " Do you understand ? " Receiving a faint 

affirmative, he would proceed again with his rapid 

and fluent description, only to pull up once more 

and repeat the question: "Now, do you understand?" 

The journalist, who kept getting hotter and hotter 

and more fogged in his frantic efforts to grasp the 

meaning of this and that, would occasionally venture 

to stop Mr. Edison's flow of eloquence by declaring 

that he wasn't quite clear on such and such a point 

and would be glad if the inventor would explain a 

little more lucidly. Whereupon Mr. Edison would 

heave a profound sigh and commence all over again. 

Finally the journalist, in an apologetic tone, said 



332 HIS PERSONALITY 

he was afraid he knew very little about machinery 
and was almost ashamed of his ignorance regarding 
electricity, upon which Mr. Edison brightened up 
and with his customary kindness declared that the 
young man knew much more than many who called 
at the laboratory. And in order to put his visitor 
completely at his ease he inquired if he had ever 
told him the story about the fireman he once met 
in Canada. 

*'No/' replied the journalist, thankful for the chance 
of at last hearing something that he could understand. 
" Please tell it me." 

" Well," replied Edison, " in a certain Canadian 
town where I was running a telegraph office in my 
youth, a new factory, with a fine engine-house, was 
put up. I visited this factory one day to see the 
engine. The engineer was out, and the fireman, a 
new hand, showed me about. As we stood admiring 
the engine together, I said — 

" ' What horse power has this engine ? ' 

" The fireman gave a loud laugh. ' Horse power?' 
he exclaimed. ' Why, man, don't you know that this 
machine goes by steam ! ' 

" Another fellow," continued Edison, " who used 
to assist me in the early days was almost as green, 
and with less excuse. He helped me once to erect 
a miniature electric light plant, and when the job 
was complete he was so pleased with his part of the 
work that he said to me with a smile of pride on his 
face : ' Mr. Edison, after working with you like this, 
I believe I could put up an electric light plant 
myself.' 

" ' Could you ? ' said I. 

" * I believe I could,' he answered. * There's only 
one thing that beats me.' 



LADY INTERVIEWERS 333 

"'What is that?' I asked. 

"* I don't quite see,' he answered, 'how you get the 
oil along the wires.' " 

Lady interviewers have occasionally bearded Mr. 
Edison in his lair, but the inventor prefers the 
masculine species, even if they are sometimes less 
attractive. Some years ago a lady on a religious 
paper thought it would be highly interesting if she 
obtained from Mr. Edison his opinion on the 
" Christianising of the world " and some facts re- 
garding the best way in which it could be speedily 
and permanently accomplished. She was an intelli- 
gent and bright young woman, but worried a little 
bit too much about the betterment of that part of 
the globe where, we are told in the hymn, "the 
heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and 
stone." She was very courteously received by 
Edison, who submitted quite quietly to a perfect 
fusilade of questions respecting his religious beliefs 
and disbeliefs. After stating that all scientific men, 
he thought, believed in God, that he hadn't any 
particular creed, that he considered all religions had 
some good points, and that he went to church when 
he felt inclined and not oftener, he was requested 
by his interviewer to pass judgment on the great 
question, " Was the world becoming Christianised ? 
If not, would it ever become Christianised ? " Mr. 
Edison thought deeply, his brows contracted with 
the profoundness of the problem until the young 
woman began to fear that the question was beyond 
him. And then his brow cleared, a smile rose to his 
lips, his eyes lost their profound expression, and he 
replied : " Not only do I think that the world in time 
will become Christianised, but I believe we shall 
both live to see it." Then, as the young woman 



334 HIS PERSONALITY 

gave an ecstatic upward glance, he added : " Just 
look at the way these big improved machine guns 
are wiping out the heathen." 

As appropriate to the conversation, Mr. Edison 
then proceeded to show his visitor plans for a new 
collection plate of a very novel make, which he felt 
sure would prove highly successful in drawing 
substantial contributions from any ordinary con- 
gregation. " You know," he said with a smile, 
"how modest people are in dropping money into 
the collection plate ? They don't want it to be 
known how generous they are, so I have thought 
out a device furnished with slots. The silver coins — 
half-dollars, quarters, and dime — would fall through 
their respective slots into a velvet-lined compartment, 
but the nickels and pennies, falling through theirs, 
would ring a bell like a cash register." 



CHAPTER XXII 

PHOTOGRAPHING THE WIZARD 

THE present writer has had Mr. Edison photo- 
graphed so often that a few words regarding 
the inventor as a poser before the camera may not, 
perhaps, be without interest. The first occasion was 
many years ago at his laboratory, Silver Lake, New 
Jersey, and though the pictures were really excellent 
Mr. Edison did not think so. But there was a 
" reason," which will subsequently appear. We had 
taken with us a snapshot camera fitted with films, 
and invited the inventor to step out into the sunlight 
to have his picture taken. He had no objection, 
though he looked a little askance at his well-worn 
and chemical-stained coat. He even tried to rub 
away some of the dust, but immediately afterwards 
remarked with great philosophy that he " guessed it 
wouldn't show in the picture." 

We guessed it wouldn't either, and, leaving his 
laboratory, Mr. Edison took up his position near the 
door of his office and the shutter was snapped. Then 
one of his men brought a chair, and a sitting position 
was taken, after which Mr. Edison examined the 
camera with some minuteness. On making the dis- 
covery that we had used films he said he was afraid 
the pictures wouldn't turn out very good, as he did 

335 



336 PHOTOGRAPHING THE WIZARD 

not believe in anything but plates in portraiture. 
*' Films," he said, " are bound to stretch more or less, 
and when they do — well, what becomes of your fea- 
tures ? " However, the photographs turned out very 
well — excellent, in fact — and those in the labora- 
tory who saw the prints vowed that we had got the 
" old man " to a dot. When we showed them to 
Mr. Edison, however, he recollected that they were 
the ones we had taken with films and immediately 
handed them back, saying they were very bad. 

On another occasion, when visiting the Orange 
laboratory for photographic purposes, Mr. Joseph 
Byron, the celebrated flash and daylight artist, 
together with an expert assistant, accompanied us, 
and we photographed the laboratory from end to end. 
Mr. Edison happened to be away at the time, but 
he returned at four o'clock in order to give us the 
promised sittings. Naturally we wished to show the 
inventor in his own chemical laboratory, as being the 
scene where he evolved those wonders with which 
from time to time he startled civilisation. First of 
all, however, we met him in the library, and it was 
suggested that a picture should be made of the in- 
ventor " attending to his correspondence." Nothing 
loath, he seated himself at his desk, took out one of 
his famous note-books, and was soon so absorbed that 
he never knew when the photograph was taken, or 
raised his head when the flash was fired. We were 
obliged to remind him that he had promised to pose 
for us in the chemical laboratory, and he roused him- 
self with a start, regarding us for a moment in some 
astonishment. He laughed as soon as his thoughts 
returned, and said : — 

" Yes, I'm a bit absent-minded at times, but I'm not 
so bad as I used to be. Some years ago I remember 



EDISON POSES BEFORE THE CAMERA 337 

one of the boys from a New York paper came down 
to take some pictures of me, and made some very 
funny ones. The fact was I had been up all night 
and several nights, and was pretty well tired out, but 
I had promised him a sitting, and, as I always try to 
keep my promises, I told him to go ahead. Well, 
before he had time to arrange his camera I was 
sound asleep in my chair. When I woke up he had 
vanished and I went to bed. A few days later he 
came down again and showed me the photographs — 
half a dozen of them — depicting me in various stages 
of sleep. We had a hearty laugh over them, and I 
gave him another sitting." 

When we reached the chemical laboratory Mr. 
Edison immediately fell to work and began experi- 
menting with phials and retorts and other mysterious 
looking things, and again forgot all about the photo- 
grapher. However, as soon as he took on a charac- 
teristic pose Byron would say, "Just a moment, Mr. 
Edison," and he would remain in position until the 
picture was made. As the laboratory was not very 
bright, for the day was cloudy, a mixture of daylight 
with a small flash was used, which gave most excellent 
results. Some one, however, seeing smoke issue from 
the windows concluded that a fire was in progress, 
and informed the day watchman, who came running 
into the room in great excitement. 

After a few minutes the inventor left his table and 
walked to the outer laboratory, where Mr. Ott was 
busy watching some queer compound bubbling over 
an electric spark. Mr. Edison, noting his tense ex- 
pression, declared that his chief assistant would make 
an excellent study of an " Alchemist," and in spite of 
Mr. Ott's modest protestations that he didn't want 
to pose, the plate was exposed. While this picture 

23 



338 PHOTOGRAPHING THE WIZARD 

was being made Mr. Edison, who had found a bottle 
containing some soft compound and was extracting 
it by the aid of his penknife, had struck another 
characteristic attitude which was also transferred to 
a plate. On being asked what the bottle contained, 
he replied, " Liquid glass," and seemed much amused 
when the assistant innocently remarked that he didn't 
know one could preserve glass in bottles like pickles. 
A few days prior to the twenty-fifth anniversary 
of his invention of the incandescent light we photo- 
graphed the inventor again. He was in the highest 
spirits, and was on the eve of going for a holiday to 
Florida. He loves fishing, and was as pleased at the 
prospect of having a "good time" as a schoolboy 
might have been. He came down specially to the 
laboratory to give the promised sittings, and we took 
him in a variety of interesting poses. While in the 
chemical laboratory Mrs. Edison entered and 
whispered to her husband that a certain well-known 
daily newspaper had sent down a representative. 
Would he spare him ten minutes ? " Not on your 
life," replied the inventor, as though too excited over 
his approaching holiday to wish to talk. Mrs. Edison 
was too tactful to press the matter, and retired to give 
the disappointing message. Presently she returned, 
and was consulting with her husband over some 
subject, when one of the photographers whispered 
that a picture showing the two together and in the 
laboratory would be unique. Mrs. Edison's per- 
mission was asked for the making of the negative, 
but she begged to be excused as she had a great 
objection to being photographed. Mr. Edison at 
once took in the situation, and with great presence 
of mind remarked to his wife : " My dear, don't 
mind those gentlemen, they will soon be finished." 




cVZ-.w/ij/// i'/K'/i) by Byivn, \cu' York. 
MR. AND MRS. EUISON IN THE CHEMICAL LAHORA lORV. 



EDISON'S GOOD NATURE 339 

Then turning to the operators he screwed his left eye 
into a very palpable wink, as much as to say, " Go 
ahead," and immediately returned to the discussion 
he was having with Mrs. Edison. No other hint was 
required, and we "went ahead" at once, with the 
result that we obtained one of the most interesting 
photographs of the inventor and his wife ever taken. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

SOME ANECDOTES 

AS has been remarked before, Mr. Edison is an 
extremely modest man, and perhaps one of the 
best examples of his modesty was given a few years 
ago when he was making out an application blank for 
membership in the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia. 
Among other particulars it was necessary to give 
his qualification for membership, and in the space 
reserved for that piece of information the inventor 
wrote : " I have designed a concentrating plant and 
a machine shop, &c." A very big volume indeed 
would be required to contain all that that "&c." 
included. 

One of Edison's staunchest admirers was Pasteur, 
the noted bacteriologist, who was not afflicted with 
modesty, as is evidenced by the following little 
anecdote. An American journalist of some note 
was interviewing Pasteur when the discoverer of the 
cure for hydrophobia remarked : " Your Edison is 
a great man. When the history of our generation 
comes to be written two names that will stand out 
most prominently in science will be his and — mine ! " 

Apropos of Edison's drastic opinions on the subject 
of diet, the inventor is fond of telling a story illustra- 
tive of how great a slave a man may become to meal 

34° 



NEVER CARRIES A WATCH 341 

hours if he choose. " You know, of course," he 
would say, "all about the Ohio man who went to 
New York for the first time, and, having taken a 
room at a good hotel, he unpacked his grip and then 
went to the desk to inquire about the meals. 

*' ' What is the eatin' hours in this yere hotel ? ' he 
said to the clerk. 

" * Breakfast,' the clerk answered, ' seven to eleven ; 
lunch, eleven to three ; dinner, three to eight ; supper, 
eight to twelve.' 

" ' Jerusalem ! ' exclaimed the astonished farmer, 
* when am I goin' to git time to see the town ? ' " 

Edison, as has frequently been stated, takes little 
notice of the flight of time. He never carries a 
watch, and there is no clock to be seen in the 
chemical laboratory where he works. With him 
it is time to knock off when a task is finished — 
the hour has nothing to do with it. His workpeople, 
of course, disperse at a fixed hour each day, but 
nothing is more likely to irritate the inventor when 
engaged in some interesting experiments with a close 
associate than to be reminded that time is passing. 
An admirer recently wrote to Edison and asked him 
if he might bring his little son to see him, for he was 
visiting America and would not like to take the child 
back without his having spoken to the inventor. Mr. 
Edison, ever agreeable, wrote back to say that he 
would be glad to see them both. After a cordial 
greeting the visitor bade the boy look upon the 
inventor, and recollect that he had met one of the 
great ones of the earth. Mr. Edison, somewhat em- 
barrassed, disclaimed any claim to greatness, where- 
upon the visitor begged that he would say something 
to the boy which he would carry away with him and 
which would help to influence his life. Mr. Edison 



342 SOME ANECDOTES 

looked down upon the lad, patted his curly head, and 
then, with a smile of unusual kindliness, said : " My 
boy, never watch the clock." 

Edison has strong opinions on cigarette smoking, 
Some years ago he said to an interviewer : " Smoking 
tobacco is a pretty good working stimulant. But 
cigarettes, they're deadly. It is not the tobacco, it's 
the acrolein produced by the burning paper that does 

the harm, and let me tell you " his voice betrayed 

some feeling and his face grew grave — "acrolein is 
one of the most terrible drugs in its effect on the 
human body. The burning of ordinary cigarette 
paper always produces acrolein. That is what makes 
the smoke irritating. I really believe it often makes 
boys insane. We sometimes develop acrolein in 
the laboratory in our experiments with glycerine. 
One whiff of it from the oven drove one of my assis- 
tants out of the building the other day. I can hardly 
exaggerate the dangerous nature of acrolein, and yet 
that is what a man or boy is dealing with every time 
he smokes an ordinary cigarette. The harm that 
such a deadly poison, when taken into the system, 
must inflict upon a growing lad is horrible to con- 
template." 

" The other day," he continued, " I found a package 
of cigarettes which some one had dropped on my 
office step. The very sight of it gave me a feeling of 
disgust, and I went back into the office and wrote 
this sign : * A degenerate, who is retrograding toward 
the lower animal life, has lost his tack.' And I 
nailed the package with the sign up in a conspicuous 
place. I was mad at first, but I carried the thing 
through as a joke. The fellow, whoever he was (and 
I never found out), must have been a facetious scamp, 
for he confiscated his cigarettes and nailed a cigar 



WORRY AND HARD WORK 343 

up in their place. The point of the joke, of course, 
was that I smoke cigars down here in the shop 
nearly all day long." 

Mr. Edison is a close student of the newspapers, 
and has a habit of cutting out any paragraph (not 
necessarily of a scientific nature) which appeals to 
him. In going through some of his papers one day 
the writer came across the following paragraph which 
happily illustrates what Edison has always asserted, 
viz., that it is worry that kills and not hard work. 
The inventor probably saved the cutting for the 
reason that it so succinctly puts into words his own 
thoughts, and for that reason I reproduce it here : — 

" It is well to be concerned about one's business 
sufficiently to look after it in all its details, but it is 
not well to be so concerned that one cannot sleep. 
It is a privilege to work, but that privilege should not 
be abused. It is not an indication of deep intelli- 
gence for a man to labour until his vital forces are 
exhausted. When a man works more than is good 
for him, sensible people look upon him as one who 
considers this the real life, instead of the temporal 
existence preceding the life which is to come. 
Thomas Alva Edison is a happy and healthy man. 
He does not worry. He is great as an inventor and 
great as a man, and the men of this and coming 
generations will do well to follow his example, re- 
membering always that it is worry and not work 
which kills, and, furthermore, that all the worry in 
the world never helped to emancipate one from the 
thraldom of a bad business situation. On the other 
hand, worry has unfitted many a man for the task 
of meeting obligations, which caused the worry, when 
they came." These clever remarks — I wish I knew 
the name of their author — should be hung above the 



344 SOME ANECDOTES 

desk of every business man in the country — at least 
of every business man who makes a worry of his 
work. 

And here may be given Mr. Edison's remarks 
on newspapers. It must be remembered that the 
inventor was once a newspaper man himself, and he 
has in his heart a very warm corner for the " boys " 
who follow journalism as a profession, though, sad to 
relate, he has not always been treated well by them, 
and has, indeed, on more than one occasion forbidden 
representatives of certain papers entering his labora- 
tory. However, as he himself will cheerfully remark, 
there are black sheep in every flock, be they in the 
clerical, scientific, literary, military, or medical fold, 
and this fact has in no way changed the very high 
opinion he has of the Press as a whole. " Looking 
over the whole country," he says, " I have come to 
the conclusion that the greatest factor in our progress 
has been the newspaper press. When one wants to 
do a thing the newspapers take it up. Everybody 
reads the newspapers, everybody knows the situation, 
and we all act together." On another occasion he 
said : " To let the world know through type who and 
what and where you are, and what you have which 
this great world wants, is the secret of success, and 
the printing press is its mightiest machine to that 
end." 

For a great many years Mr. Edison had no great 
belief in the advantages of book-keeping — even that 
kind of book-keeping which comprises double and 
single entries and other mysteries — though his faith 
in its usefulness as well as necessity has long since 
been re-established. And in support of this queer 
lack of confidence in what is generally regarded as 
the sheet anchor of every firm's successful career, he 



EDISON AND BOOK-KEEPING 345 

sometimes relates how in his early days, when he 
first started in business for himself, book-keeping ran 
him into an extravagance which, as it turned out, he 
could ill afford. 

It was in the Newark days, and having opened his 
factory and engaged his men he was advised by his 
friends to hire the services of a capable accountant in 
order that the books should be correctly kept. No 
self-respecting firm, he was imformed, could get along 
without a book-keeper, and so a book-keeper was 
engaged. For a year Edison directed the affairs of 
his business and never thought any more of the man 
of figures until at the end of the first twelve months 
the accountant drew up a statement and presented it 
to the inventor. That statement brought great joy 
to the heart of Edison, for by it he saw that the firm's 
status had improved to the extent of $8,000 during 
the year. He gave a whoop, and soon every one in 
the building heard that the factory was making good 
money. Edison felt so pleased that he issued orders 
for a big dinner to be held in the stock-room, and the 
entire staff, from the overseer to the humblest mem- 
ber, was invited. They all had a good time ; Edison 
was in the highest spirits, the eatables and drinkables 
were of the best, and every one voted the banquet 
a great success. 

Then after Edison had discharged the bill and the 
excitement occasioned by the knowledge that he had 
made a good profit had somewhat evaporated he be- 
gan to think. He really couldn't figure out how the 
profit had been arrived at, and, calling his book-keeper 
into his office, he spent an hour or two with that 
gentleman going over the accounts. As they pro- 
ceeded in their investigations Edison's face became 
longer and longer, while the accountant himself 



346 SOME ANECDOTES 

showed some signs of nervousness. Finally, it be- 
came only too evident that a mistake had been made, 
and when the debits and credits were at last disen- 
tangled, it was found that instead of $8,000 profit 
there had been a loss of $7,000. Edison was very 
much upset, said some hard things about book-keeping 
in general and his own book-keeper in particular, but 
finally laughed and put his accountant a little more 
at his ease by declaring that it didn't matter, and 
perhaps they would do better next time. The follow- 
ing year there really was an excellent profit, but 
Edison celebrated the event more quietly, and the 
staff was obliged to do without a dinner at his 
expense. But even though the accountant made 
no more mistakes it was a very long time before 
Edison's belief in the infallibility of book-keeping 
was thoroughly restored. 

Mr. A. A. Anderson, the well-known American 
artist, who painted a very fine portrait of Edi- 
son in 1903, relates some interesting facts regard- 
ing the inventor and refers to Edison's attitude 
towards mathematics. He said : " I tried to paint 
Edison as the scientist, for it is the artist's duty not 
only to study his subject well, but to consider for what 
purpose the picture is designed. I enjoyed painting 
Edison, though he is no easy subject. He is restless, 
until he gets his thoughts concentrated upon some 
scientific problem, and then he becomes quiet, and 
the expression upon his face is one that an artist loves 
to catch and transmit to the world. But it was not so 
easy to get him thinking, for his brain works best in 
a noise. He likes to be in his factory or workshop, 
with the hum and clatter of his machinery about 
him. But I know something of electricity, and am 
deeply interested in it, so I was able by conversa- 



HIS MATHEMATICAL MIND 347 

tion to lead him into a train of thought that would 
get him into the proper condition for sitting as a 
subject. 

" In painting him I learned that he has the mind, 
not of a deductive reasoner, but of the man inspired, 
you might almost say. He arrives at his conclusions 
by intuition and not by mathematical reasoning. For 
instance, when he invented the ordinary pear-shaped 
glass bulb for incandescent electric lights he wanted 
to ascertain its precise cubic contents. He gave the 
problem to several eminent mathematicians and they 
figured it out. When they brought their answers he 
told them that they were all wrong. He could not 
tell exactly how he reached his own conclusion, but 
he knew what it was and wanted to prove it. His 
method of proving it illustrates the practicality 
of his ways. He had made a series of tin cubes, 
forming a nest, each one a minute quantity smaller 
than the one enclosing it. He filled a bulb with 
water and poured it from one cube to the other 
until he found which of them the contents fitted 
exactly." 

Edison invariably refers to his genius for arriving 
at correct solutions without employing mathematics 
as " guess-work," and when engaged on the Central 
Station idea he had many a tussle with mathe- 
maticians, who endeavoured to pit their mathematical 
deductions against his common-sense reasoning. " In 
all the work connected with the building of the first 
Central Station," he said in after years, " the greatest 
bugbears I had to contend with were the mathe- 
maticians. I found after a while that I could guess 
a good deal closer than they could figure, so I went 
on guessing." His first dynamos were built by guess- 
work, and when asked how it came about that they 



348 SOME ANECDOTES 

were generally up to the required power he would 
reply with a smile, " Well, I happened to be a pretty 
good guesser." 

Mr. Edison, as previously mentioned, has a name 
for being very kindly disposed towards newspaper 
men, who come to see him on various subjects 
of interest — from his latest invention down to his 
opinion on nuts as a satisfactory form of diet. If 
the subject is of a technical nature, the inventor 
generally clothes his explanations in language which 
is easily understood by the very freshest reporter. 
On one occasion, however, so very green a young 
man called to question him regarding a new light 
which Edison had evolved while experimenting 
with the X-ray, that the temptation to treat 
him to something a little above his head was too 
great, and after showing him what the new light 
would do, the inventor unburdened himself of the 
following : — 

" Of course you will understand," he said, " that 
ammeters placed in the primary circuit show a mean 
current of two amperes when the lamp is giving 
one candle." Beads of perspiration began to ooze 
from the brow of the reporter, but he managed to 
get something down and declared that he fully 
agreed with what the inventor had said. " Well," 
continued Edison, " I need scarcely tell you that the 
drop of potential across the primary is three-tenths 
of a volt." The reporter faintly murmured he 
believed that that was about the usual percentage. 
" But you must not forget," went on his tormentor, 
*' that the current is interrupted 250 times per second." 
The reporter said he would try to remember it. 
" And also that it is closed four-fifths of the time and 
opened one-fifth of the time." At this stage the 



EDISON AT THE TELEGRAPH KEY 349 

newspaper man could only nod with the faintest 
appearance of sagacity. "The spectrum of light," 
continued Edison, "is a lower regrangibility than 
the arc light. Do you follow me ? " The dazed 
man gave a more animated nod than he thought 
he was capable of, and the inventor drew a deep 
breath and went on. " A globe six inches in dia- 
meter will give eight candles. The best com- 
mercial lamp requires three and one-half times 
the amount of energy per second required in this 
lamp." The reporter began to breathe again. " But 
the best incandescent lamp requires 138 foot pounds 
of energy per second for each candle-power. The 
new light requires but 39*6 foot pounds. And 
therein," concluded Edison, triumphantly, "lies its 
value." Then he said goodbye to the white-faced 
reporter, telling him to come again when he wanted 
another simple explanation, but up to the present 
he has not taken advantage of the invitation. 

The last time that Edison acted in the capacity 
of telegraph operator was in 1896, during the Elec- 
trical Exhibition at the Grand Central Palace, New 
York. He had been asked if he would be willing to 
receive a proposed message to be sent around the 
world by Chauncey M. Depew. The inventor said 
that while he was perfectly willing to play operator 
for one night, he doubted his ability to do so. It 
was twenty-six years since he had tried to read 
a message over the wire. Several electricians and 
friends present also doubted his ability to receive, and 
some jokingly said that they did not think after so 
many years without touching a key that he would be 
able to distinguish a dot from a dash. A gentleman 
interested in the discussion thereupon asked Edison 
if he would try his hand as an operator in the tele- 



350 SOME ANECDOTES 

graph room of the New York Journal, and to this the 
inventor smilingly agreed. 

When he entered the room with the dozen or more 
instruments rattling off messages from all parts of 
the world, he glanced around, smiled, and said — 

" Oh, I guess I'm all right yet." 

A key was selected, and pen, ink, and telegraph 
blanks given to him. 

" Good man at the other end ? " asked Edison, 
as he tilted the cigar in his mouth at an angle of 
45 degrees. 

"Pretty fair," said the manager of the telegraph 
department, who had called up the main office and 
told the man in charge to send what he had on hand 
to a new operator. 

The instrument commenced to click, and Edison 
to make the usual cabalistic signs that nobody but a 
telegraph operator knows the meaning of. 

"It's easy to read. Good Morse," said the new 
operator. " Only afraid I cannot write as fast as 
I used to." 

Then continuing to write with one hand, he struck 
a match and lighted the cigar that had gone out 
while he was talking. 

The crack operators, who expected to see the 
man who was boss of them thirty years ago " break " 
in his work, looked on as Edison wrote without a 
pause. When the signature was given, he com- 
menced to report the message just to see how he 
could send. 

" Wonder if that other fellow works a typewriter ? 
I guess he has got the best of it," said Edison, as he 
turned loose on his man at the other end. " That is 
the first message I have received or sent in twenty- 
six years," he continued as he leaned back in his 



TAKES A MESSAGE AFTER 26 YEARS 351 

chair. " I think I could receive or send if I lived 
to be a thousand. I do not believe a man ever 
forgets it. It read just like copper-plate, but it kept 
me scratching to get it down. Now, if those fellows 



ttv^T'-j-irc «$ C«U*%*-* *'«»p»^fl| ^C/U^cVvX* {A <? 

p 



\t' 







PRESS MESSAGE RECEIVED AND WRITTEN OUT BY MR. EDISON AFTER 
TWENTY-SIX YEARS' ABSENCE FROM THE TELEGRAPH KEY. 



who are going to send that message around the 
world want to turn loose next Saturday night, why, 
I guess they can." 
The operators declared the exhibition between 



352 SOME ANECDOTES 

Mr. Edison and the main office manager to be 
" bang up " work for anybody. As it happened, 
however, Mr. Edison was unable to spare the time 
to receive Chauncey Depew's message. 

Senator Depew, by the way, tells an amusing 
story about Edison which I cannot refrain from 
quoting here. "During the exhibition at Chicago," 
he says, " Edison visited the Fair, and saw every- 
thing in the electrical line. One day, while down 
town, he happened to see the * shingle ' of an electric 
belt concern — a belt you put around you, and which 
is supposed to cure any ailment you happen to be 
troubled with. Well, thinking that perhaps there 
was something in the application of electricity which 
was new to him he went up to the office. A very 
pert young lady immediately inquired what she 
could do for him. 

" * Well,' began Edison, * I wanted to know how 
those belts worked, and I thought I might learn by 
coming up here.' 

" * Certainly,' said the young lady, taking up a belt. 
*You see the current of electricity goes from the 
copper to the zinc plate, and then ' 

"*Just a moment,' said Edison, politely,'! don't 
hear very well at times. Did you say the current 
went from the copper to the zinc plate ? ' 

" ' I certainly did. Then, as I was saying ' 

" * Just one moment,' interrupted Edison again. 
'Let me understand this. You say it goes from the 
copper to the zinc ? ' 

" ' Yes, sir, it goes from the copper to the zinc' 

" ' But do you know, I always thought it went 
from the zinc to the copper.' 

"'Well, it don't.' 

" * But are you sure ? ' Edison asked, smiling. 



GREAT DESTRUCTION OF TUMBLERS 353 

" * Well, may be you know more about electricity 
than I do/ snapped the girl, as she threw the belt 
down and glared at the ' Wizard/ 

" ' Perhaps I do,' Edison admitted, and he turned 
and left the place." 

The incident, however, in no way ruffled his 
temper. Nothing, indeed, puts him out, and the fact 
that he possesses so even a temperament is doubtless 
due to his unfailing fund of patience. A story is told 
which aptly illustrates this trait in his character. He 
had been for some days carrying on a series of experi- 
ments in which he used a great many open-mouthed 
tumblers. In one experiment alone he had destroyed 
over four hundred tumblers, the experiment itself 
ending in complete failure. Then one of his assis- 
tants who had been helping the inventor for many 
hours and was somewhat weary of the work, said : 
" Well, Mr. Edison, what shall we do next ? " fervently 
hoping that he would suggest his going home. In- 
stead, however, Edison scratched his head for 
a moment, and then looking at the mountain of 
broken glass said slowly : " Why, I suppose the 
next thing to do is to get some more tumblers." 

Scientific visitors to the Edison laboratory are 
often astonished at the number and variety of things 
which the inventor has worked at during his life and 
of which the general public knows nothing. One 
distinguished scientist — a celebrated German savant 
— becoming confidential, spoke of some experiments 
which he had himself made in a direction that he 
supposed was unknown and untried. 

" Did you try this ? " inquired Edison ; " and did 
you get such a result ? " 

The visitor was lost in amazement on discovering 
that Edison had made similar experiments and had 

24 



354 SOME ANECDOTES 

arrived at the same result. But, unlike his visitor, 
he saw that there was "nothing in it" — nothing of 
commercial benefit, that is — and had discarded it in 
favour of something more directly useful to the 
human race. The same visitor asked Edison to 
name his principal inventions, and with characteristic 
reluctance he replied : " Well, first and foremost the 
idea of the electric lighting station ; then, let me see, 
what have I invented? Oh, there was the mimeo- 
graph and also the electric pen, and the carbon tele- 
phone, and the incandescent lamp and its accessories, 
and the quadruplex telegraph, and the automatic 
telegraph, and the phonograph, and the kinetoscope 
and — and — oh, I don't know, a whole lot of other 
things." 

Among the innumerable visitors to the States who 
have desired to see Edison was Li Hung Chang who, 
however, was disappointed in meeting the inventor. 
Almost as soon as he arrived on American soil the 
Viceroy sent for Mr. Edison's representative in New 
York, and scarcely giving the man time to breathe, 
the distinguished Chinaman said — 

" Now about Edison. Where is he ? How old is 
he ? How long have you known him ? Where and 
when did you meet him ? " 

All these questions, with a great many more, came 
out in a perfect stream, and the interpreter had a 
hard job translating them without incurring his 
master's wrath. As it was he was several questions 
behind and had to miss a few in order to keep up 
with the impetuous Viceroy. The representative of 
the inventor replied that he had first met Mr. Edison 
many years ago on Broadway. 

" He is the inventor of the telephone, isn't he ? " 
asked the Viceroy. 



EDISON AND THE CHINESE VICEROY 355 

" He is the inventor of the improvements which 
make it a practical machine," was the guarded reply. 

" If I want to introduce it into China, he is the man 
to see, isn't he ? " asked Li excitedly. 

"Yes, he can introduce it," replied the repre- 
sentative. 

"I want to see Edison. Will he go to China?" 
were the next sentences uttered with some im- 
patience. 

" He will go there if he has work to do," calmly 
replied the much questioned American. 

" Can you arrange a meeting between us ? I want 
to see him. I must see him. He is a great man. 
Can you bring him to me ? " 

" Yes, if he can be found," answered the worried 
representative. 

The following morning, before five, the representa- 
tive was hurriedly sent for by Li, who wished to see 
him at his hotel. When he arrived the Viceroy re- 
ceived him while in bed and anxiously inquired if 
Edison had been found. He was told that Edison 
was at Niagara Falls, and he expressed his deter- 
mination to go there to meet the great inventor in 
a couple of days' time. 

A week after a reporter hurried off to Orange and 
succeeded in buttonholing Edison, and inquired if he 
had had any dealings with Li Hung Chang during 
his visit. The Viceroy's anxiety to meet the inventor 
had become public. " I have not met Li Hung Chang," 
Edison replied. " He telegraphed to me here asking 
if I would meet him, but I didn't comply with his 
request, as I was in the country and did not care 
to leave my family alone. I have no idea what he 
wanted to see me about." 

Meanwhile, a long article had appeared in the New 



356 SOME ANECDOTES 

York press stating that a gigantic deal was in pro- 
gress between Li and Edison. Millions were in- 
volved, and Edison was going to China to be a guest 
of the Empress. He was to be entertained with 
Oriental splendour, and Li was to act as his guide 
through the celestial country. Edison was shown 
the article and asked if it were correct. The inventor 
smiled. " I have no deal on with the Viceroy," he 
replied. " Nor do I expect to have one. We have 
put in big electric plants in Shanghai and other 
Chinese cities and, if I remember correctly, have 
done work for Li. That is all there is to this foolish 
story." 

So Li Hung Chang was obliged to leave America 
without seeing the man who is accessible to the 
humblest admirer. Probably if such a thing had 
happened in his own country he would have given 
orders for Edison's head to be brought to him if his 
body refused to accompany it. But, as has been 
stated before, Edison is no respecter of persons. He 
didn't want to see Li, and so Li didn't see him. 

There is, however, one illustrious personage whom 
Edison would greatly like to see and chat to, and 
that is King Edward, for whom he has a very real and 
sincere admiration. " He is a great man," Edison 
declared to the writer recently, "and perhaps the 
best and wisest king that ever sat on the British 
throne. There are no ' frills ' about King Edward, 
he is just as democratic as you or I, though of course 
there are certain ceremonies which he must keep up 
in order to safeguard the dignity of the Monarchy. 
In two years' time I hope to pay England a visit, and 
then, perhaps, I may have the happiness of meeting 
his Majesty. You know," he added, with a twinkle, 
" Mark Twain did." 



EDISON SEES KING EDWARD 357 

Mr. Edison well recollects the visit of King Edward 
to the States, now nearly half a century ago. " And 
no wonder," he humorously remarked, " for on 
that day I managed to get the biggest black eye 
I ever had in my life. It happened in this way. I 
was at school at the time, and there was bitter rivalry 
between our establishment and another school in the 
neighbourhood. Well, the Prince of Wales, as he 
was then, consented to pay our town a visit, and all the 
schools were to take part in the general welcome. 
We were therefore lined up, commanded to ' quick 
march,' and were nearing the scene of festivities when 
our rivals loomed in sight. We met, and an instant 
later the fight was on. I felt that things were coming 
my way, and I was not wrong, for suddenly I received 
a terrific blow in my left eye which put it entirely out 
of business. When I recovered myself our assailants 
had vanished, order was restored, and we proceeded 
on our way. Yes," concluded Edison sadly, " I saw 
the Prince all right, but it was out of one optic only." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

HIS OPINIONS 

AS has been mentioned once before, Edison has 
probably been interrogated on a greater 
number of subjects than any other living scientist. 
Directly a discussion begins in the Press — whether of 
electrical, scientific, or general interest — the news- 
paper men rush off to Orange to get Edison's 
opinion. Very often the inventor declines to say 
anything, but should he happen to be in the mood to 
talk and the subject is one which has attracted his 
attention — he follows the papers with as much keen- 
ness as he does nature's secrets — he will discuss it 
with considerable freedom. 

Fifteen years ago Edison was asked if he believed 
a ship would ever be constructed which would do the 
trip between Liverpool and New York in four days. 
He said that he was positive that such a vessel would 
be built and that he would live to see it. He also 
stated that the question was one of reducing the 
friction between the sides of the ship and the water. 
Perhaps, he declared, some means might be found 
whereby electricity could be employed to arrive at 
such an end. He had experimented a little in this 
direction, but not much. Then Edison, with a 
humorous smile which the interviewer did not notice, 

358 



ACROSS ATLANTIC IN FOUR DAYS 359 

suggested that a possible means of rendering a vessel 
capable of slipping through the water more easily 
would be by greasing her sides, which might be per- 
forated so that oil would be slowly but constantly 
oozing out. He hadn't tried it himself, but it was an 
idea which had occurred to him. 

This suggestion was one which appealed to the 
reporter's imagination, and when he returned to his 
office he wrote an interesting account of how by 
merely oiling the sides of a vessel she might thereby 
double and even treble her speed. The article was 
sanely and reasonably written, and widely quoted 
both in the European as well as the American Press, 
and Edison was credited with another remarkable 
" discovery." One newspaper, in a leading article 
heavily leaded, said : " It may be that the theory 
propounded by the ingenious Mr. Edison that 
greasing the sides of ships will so diminish the 
resistance of the water as to increase their speed by 
one-third is a correct one, and if so it will be another 
instance of the enormous economic advantage hidden 
in a simple appliance lying always ready to hand, 
and overlooked in the costly and laborious search for 
remoter ones. 

" We can compute the millions which have been 
and still are being expended in increasing the speed 
of ships, fighting for hours and half-hours and 
minutes even with a fervour of ingenuity which 
spared no cost and left no pneumatic or mechanical 
or constructive resources unexplored. It will be a 
startling disclosure to naval architects and engineers 
if the solution of their problem be found not in 
improved wave lines or tubular boilers or triple 
screws, but, like truth in a well, at the bottom of 
the obscure and unregarded grease pot. Perhaps 



36o HIS OPINIONS 

Mr. Edison has made the greatest economic discovery 
of the century, and, except steam, the greatest ever 
applied to navigation since the launching of the Ark 
or the Argo. If it fulfil what are asserted to be his 
expectations, New York and London will be only 
four days apart, and the carrying trade of the world 
will be revolutionised. At the same time the price 
of oil will be likely to go up." 

But experiments in this queer method of reducing 
the resistance of the water and enabling a vessel to 
slip through her element at treble her usual rate 
were not prosecuted with any real enthusiasm, and 
engineers and naval architects to-day still pin their 
faith to boilers and turbines. The four-day ship, 
however, is in sight, and Mr. Edison's prophecy 
will doubtless be realised during the next few 
years. 

Fourteen years ago considerable excitement was 
caused by certain writers — who probably desired to 
" rig " the market — declaring that aluminium was to 
be the metal of the future. There was nothing that 
this mineral would not be useful for, and its strength 
and cheapness would render it a suitable material for 
either a table ornament or a battle-ship. Edison 
was again asked for his opinion on the question, and 
he was very emphatic in stating that "there was 
nothing to it." He affirmxed that as a metal it was 
practically useless, and for machinery or construc- 
tion one might just as well employ lead. Its extreme 
lightness would render it a suitable material for 
making ornaments, and that would be all. To be of 
any use for other things it must be alloyed with 
another metal — preferably copper. The coming 
metal, Mr. Edison thought, was nickel steel — steel 
with a 5 per cent, addition of nickel. It would 




Photo by Byron, New York. 



MR. EDISON EXAMINING A STATEMENT RENDERED BY ONE OF 
HIS WORKPEOPLE. 

Page 360. 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 361 

make splendid armour plates, for, unlike pure steel 
it will not crack, and is very difficult to bore. 

" A burglar-proof safe," Mr. Edison further stated, 
while on the subject of metals and their qualities, " is 
as impossible to make as an unsinkable boat. You 
can make a safe of nickel-steel which you may not 
be able to bore or crack, but there is no safe that is 
not at the mercy of a dynamite cartridge. A burglar 
can carry in his pocket power sufficient to break open 
a dozen safes. An absolutely burglar-proof safe is 
as difficult to make as perpetual motion is to find, for 
as soon as a material is invented which will resist 
the most powerful explosive known, chemists go to 
work and evolve some other substance which will 
destroy it. That is the whole history of armour- 
plating and big guns." 

Edison has absolute faith in wireless telegraphy, 
and he believes that the man who will make it a 
success is Marconi. Two or three years ago Edison 
made a statement regarding wireless which is well 
worth recalling, for he endorsed that statement in 
June, 1907. " I think," he said, " Marconi will work 
across the Atlantic commercially. He will send 
messages around the world by repeating stations, 
but he will not do it in one jump. Great under- 
takings are not completed in jumps. The discovery 
of any fundamental principle, of course, always is a 
jump, but the working out of the details is another 
matter which involves laborious work in the field of 
experiment, especially if it is to be worked on com- 
mercial lines. 

" Wireless is going to be the telegraph of the sea. 
The time will come when any one on the maritime 
exchange can send out a wireless message and catch 
any vessel afloat in any part of the world and change 



362 HIS OPINIONS 

her routing. I don't think so much about the out- 
look for the wireless system on land. That field is 
practically occupied. But the ocean field is open. I 
think it will be only a question of a few years before 
wireless is developed to a point where it will be a 
practical and important factor in the industrial 
world." 

Readers will perhaps remember how many years 
ago the plague of rabbits in Australia became so 
great that the Australian Government offered a big 
reward to any one who would suggest a means of 
dealing successfully with the pest. A certain 
American who had a desire to claim the reward 
but didn't quite see how he was going to do it, 
conceived the idea of calling upon Edison to get a 
few points which might be useful. Edison received 
the gentleman very courteously, and having learned 
the object of his visit did not " turn him down " 
immediately, but talked on the subject, and sug- 
gested several simple methods by which the rabbits 
in Australia might be got rid of He did not think 
his visitor's idea of sowing fields of carrots and then 
injecting a poison into the vegetable was quite prac- 
tical ; neither did he believe the difficulty was to be 
overcome by innoculating a number of the rabbits 
and then letting them loose among their unsuspect- 
ing companions. " What do you think," said 
Edison, " of stringing loaded wires around the fields, 
so that when the rabbits bumped against them the 
circuit would be complete and the animals would be 
electrocuted ? It might be done." The visitor was 
excited over the suggestion. " Why," he said with 
the greatest enthusiasm, " we might hang carrots and 
lettuces and other rabbit food on these lines, and the 
creatures would be certain to receive shocks which 



A QUEER REQUEST 363 

would kill them by thousands." He asked if it 
would be possible to electrify the barbed wire which 
was much used in Australia, and when Edison 
declared that it might be done the visitor left the 
laboratory all aglow with the possibilities of such a 
gigantic scheme. Whether he made any use of the 
information obtained from the inventor never trans- 
pired, but Edison rather thinks that he must have 
" completed the circuit " himself while experimenting, 
for he heard no more of his inventive friend. 

Edison has experimented long and successfully 
with the X-ray machine, and when it was a nine 
days' wonder he received many letters from unknown 
correspondents asking if the Roentgen discovery 
could not be applied in ways which were certainly 
the reverse of legitimate. Among these communica- 
tions was a missive from a man living in what is 
known in American parlance as a " hat " town in the 
oil regions of Pennsylvania. The letter amused Mr. 
Edison very much at the time, and he put it away 
with a few other curiosities which had been delivered 
at his laboratory through the medium of the mails. 
The letter was addressed to Menlo Park, and had 
been forwarded on to Orange. The following is a 
copy of this curious document : — 

" Mr. Thomas A. Edison, Menlo Park, NJ. 

" Dear Sir, — I write you to know if you can make 
me an X-ray apparatus for playing against faro bank ? 
I would like to have it so I can wear it on my body, 
and have it attached to spectacles or goggles so I 
can tell the second card of a deck of playing cards 
turned face up. If you will make it for me let me 
know what it will cost. If I make a success out of 
it I will pay you five thousand dollars extra in one 



364 HIS OPINIONS 

year. Please keep this to yourself. If you cannot 
make it will you be kind enough to give me Professor 
Roentgen's address ? Please let me hear from you. 

" Yours truly, 



Mr. Edison has received many other letters almost 
as curious, but he declares that that was the first and 
only occasion upon which he was asked to assist a 
gambler in beating faro banks. He would have 
liked very much to have sent for the imaginative 
card-sharper and administered a lecture, but thought 
it better to ignore his unique request. Should the 
smart Pennsylvanian have repented his ways it will, 
perhaps, be some satisfaction to him to see his letter 
published here and to learn why it was that he 
received no reply to his communication. 

When America was engaged with her war with 
Spain Edison was consulted by many reporters, hot 
on the trail of " copy," who desired to know his views 
on the outcome of the disagreement. One of them 
asked the inventor his opinion regarding the possi- 
bility of New York being "taken," and Edison 
declared that it would be more difficult for a fleet 
of warships to enter New York harbour than it 
would be for a dozen fishing boats to capture 
Gibraltar. He also made a statement to the effect 
that he believed the uses of huge war vessels were 
growing less, and that torpedo boats and torpedo 
destroyers were the great thing. Other celebrities 
were interviewed regarding the best means of annihi- 
lating an enemy, among these being Nikola Tesla, 
General Miles, Russell Sage, &c., which emboldened 
a writer, who concealed his identity under the name 
of " The Farceur," to write a play, which he called, 



EDISON IN A PLAY 365 

" Clank — Clank, the Cranks are Clanking," and pub- 
lished in a New York society paper entitled Town 
Topics. The play was never performed or even put 
into rehearsal, though it was received with much 
favour and greatly amused the celebrities who figured 
in it. The author stated that it was a realistic 
representation of "War as it is carried on by high 
Privates in the Rear Ranks," and the opening 
"business" and chorus are well worth quoting: — 

" Clank — Clank, the Cranks are Clanking. 

" (The scene is the Battery. All the cranks are 
assembled, and there is much excitement. Each one 
is preparing to annihilate Spain and free Cuba at a 
moment's notice. All the people who in time of 
peace prepare for war, and who never felt a wound, 
are there with their inventions. Rabid Jingoes are 
gnawing all the bark off the trees. General Miles is 
posing on a pedestal as a statue of Mars. Edison 
is engaged in charging the lobsters in the aquarium 
with electricity. Nikola Tesla has his ear to the 
ground, and is talking through the earth to Li Hung 
Chang. The bicycle squad is getting ready to charge 
down the bay on their wheels. Numerous war 
balloons are being rapidly filled with gas by speech- 
makers, while the sky takes on a lurid hue, and a 
flaming Cabbage Head, rampant, appears in the 
heavens in the direction of sou'-sou'-east.) 

" Chorus of Inventors. 

" We've each a great invention 

That we'd bring to your attention, 
And we guarantee 'twill knock the Spaniards stiff ; 

It will shock 'em and surprise 'em, 

It will simply paralyse 'em, 
It will blow 'em all to purgatory — if — 



366 HIS OPINIONS 

" If it works all right — 
If the fuse will light — 
If you put it underneath 'em when the moon 

shines bright — 
If they stand just so — 
If the wind don't blow — 
If it don't explode and kill you accidentally, 

you know ! 

" Now's the time to place reliance 

On the wonders of our science, 
And our country's foe we'll settle in a jiff ; 

Our plans are all perfected, 

And it's generally expected 
Our invention will annihilate 'em — IF — 

"IF it works all right, &c. 

(Af this moment Mr. Edison rushes to the front waving 

his arms.) 

" Mr. Edison : ' Hooray ! Victory is ours ! ' 

"The Crowd {breathlessly): ' How now, O Wizard?' 

" Mr. Edison {proudly) : ' It is done ! I have filled 

these lobsters so full of electricity that they buzz 

when they move. When the Spanish warships come 

in sight I will turn 'em loose in the bay, and then 

you'll see what you will see. These lobsters will 

establish a current with a line of electric eels that 

I have stationed at Sandy Hook, and the haughty 

hidalgos will get a shock that will make 'em look 

like twenty-nine cents marked down from forty/ 

" The Crowd : ' Hooray ! Cuba libre ! ' 

" Mr. Tesla {interrupting the demonstration) : ' That 

scheme won't do at all. Now, I have a fan here that 

is charged with four billion volts of Franklyn's best 

brand of bottled lightning, and when this fan gets 

fanning the results are astounding. Not ten minutes 

ago I fanned a fly from off Emperor William's nose, 

and fluted the whiskers of the King of Siam. Now, 

when the Spaniards come up the bay I'll just climb a 



THE EDISON NOVEL 367 

tree and pour a broadside of vibrations at 'em. Say, 
I'll fan 'em off the earth in not more than a minute 
and a half.' 

" The Crowd : * Hooroo ! Cuba libra ! ' " 
The play also introduces Mr. Rockefeller, Miss 
Hetty Green, Colonel John Jacob Astor, Mr. Henry 
Villiard, Mr. W. R. Hearst, and many other Ameri- 
can celebrities, all of whom have remarkable sugges- 
tions to make regarding the reception to be accorded 
the enemy, and which they give voice to either in 
prose or verse. Every one took the skit in good 
part, and Mr. Edison laughed so heartily when he 
read the play that the author himself would have 
been satisfied if he could have seen him. Mr. Edison, 
however, has long since become used to appearing in 
novels and plays, and at one time even seriously 
thought of writing a work of fiction in conjunction 
with George Parsons Lathrop. Edison was to fur- 
nish the electrical suggestions and Lathrop the plot. 
The writing was to be the work of both. The 
inventor was very enthusiastic at first, and Lathrop 
had a number of interviews with him, and Edison 
began to turn out suggestions quicker than the 
novelist could take them down. But after half a 
dozen of these " collaboration " interviews Edison's 
enthusiasm cooled very considerably. Lathrop was 
as keen on the novel as before, and had managed to 
collect from the inventor sufficient material to take 
him half-way through the book, when his collabora- 
teur met him one day with a bit of a frown on his 
smooth brow, and declared that he would have 
nothing more to do with the novel. He was very 
tired of the whole thing. He would rather invent 
a dozen useful things, including a mechanical nove- 
list who would turn out works of fiction when the 



3^8 HIS OPINIONS 

machinery was set in motion, than go any further 
with the electrical novel. He solemnly declared that 
there was no fiction in electricity, and he advised 
Lathrop to turn his attention to something else, 
which Lathrop, somewhat crestfallen, agreed to do. 
And that was the first and last incursion the inventor 
made into the realms of fiction. 

Edison has on more than one occasion been inter- 
rogated regarding the writing of his autobiography, 
and questioned as to the reason why he has not put 
out such a work. In conversation there is no man 
more brilliant than Edison, and many of his asso- 
ciates have declared that when interested in a subject 
or describing the results, perhaps, of some experi- 
ments of which the general public knows nothing, he 
uses language which is not only forceful but dramatic. 
It seems a thousand pities that on such occasions 
there should not have been some one by — some 
Boswell, perhaps — to treasure and preserve such 
conversations. And could Edison write his life as 
he talks every day in his laboratory the result would 
be a volume equal to any biography or autobiography 
yet published. But this, it has been affirmed, he 
cannot do. It is said, though Mr. Edison has not 
verified this, that more than once he has taken pen 
in hand with the notion of writing the story of his 
life. " But when he does this," says an anonymous 
writer, "a curious thing happens. He becomes 
strangely self-conscious, and the resulting narrative 
— instead of being easy, flowing, and full of snap and 
vigour — is hard, formal, and unsatisfying. He seems, 
in fact, to be seized by a sort of stage fright, which 
prevents him from doing his best, exactly as a man 
who, sitting in private conversation, can talk intelli- 
gently and well by the hour, is sometimes forced to 



EDISON'S WEDDING DAY 369 

the baldest commonplaces the moment he gets upon 
his feet. This mental condition, by the way, is not 
peculiar to Mr. Edison. There are many men of 
great ability who seem mentally paralysed the 
moment an attempt is made to direct their thoughts 
down the point of a pen in a thin stream of ink." 

It is estimated that if everything that has ever 
been written and published about Edison were col- 
lected and republished in book form it would make a 
library of a thousand volumes — each volume contain- 
ing an average of a hundred thousand words. And 
of these stories which would go to the making of 
such a library a very small proportion only would be 
found to have any real authority for their being. 
It is generally believed, for instance, by those outside 
the Edison laboratory that the inventor forgot his 
wedding day, or, rather, forgot that he had been 
married after the ceremony was performed. The 
story refers to his first marriage, and the writer asked 
Mr. Edison if the facts were as narrated. " It was 
nothing but a newspaper story," Edison replied, *' got 
up by an imaginative newspaper man who knew that 
I was a bit absent-minded. I never forgot that I 
had been married. In fact, I don't believe any man 
would forget such an event unless he wanted to. 
But perhaps there was something to account for the 
story, and I think it must have been this. 

" The day I was married a consignment of stock 
' tickers ' had been returned to the factory as being 
imperfect, and I had a desire to find out what was 
wrong and to put the machines right. An hour or so 
after the marriage ceremony had been performed I 
thought of these ' tickers,' and when my wife and I 
had returned home I mentioned them to her and 
explained that I would like to go to the factory 

25 



370 HIS OPINIONS 

to see what was the matter with them. She agreed 
at once, and I went down, where I found Bachelor, 
my assistant, hard at work trying to remedy the 
defect. We both monkeyed about with them, and 
finally after an hour or two we put them to rights, 
and I went home again. But as to forgetting that I 
was married, that's all nonsense, and both I and my 
wife laughed at the story, though when I began to 
come across it almost every other week it began 
to get tedious. It was one of those made-up stories 
which stick, and I suppose I shall always be spoken 
of as the man who forgot his wife an hour after he 
was married." 

Another absurd story which gained currency some 
years ago, and is still flourishing very healthily, is 
one connected with the invention of the incandescent 
electric light system. This story for about the thou- 
sandth time made its appearance in an English 
publication as late as 1907, and once more described 
how Edison invented the incandescent lamp in order 
to be revenged on the gas companies. His anger 
had been aroused by his gas being peremptorily cut 
off by a hard-hearted collector who wanted his bill 
paid. " That night," Edison is reported to have said, 
" as I sat in the darkness I swore I would make an 
electric light that would ruin the gas companies." 
This story always annoys Edison when his eye lights 
upon it — as it does every month or so — for he is the 
last man in the world who would seek to revenge 
himself on any one, let alone the man who merely 
demanded his rights. The story deserves by now 
to die a natural death — it is quite old enough. 

Some years ago, when the four leading Edison 
companies consolidated into one General Electric 
Company, with a capital of twelve million dollars, 



TWELVE MILLION DOLLAR BRAIN 371 

a good deal was written about the man who had 
been the instrument by which such a great business 
enterprise was possible. Edison's ''twelve million 
dollar brain " became a saying, and lessons were 
drawn anent the value of first class brains. " Here," 
said one writer, whose words are well worth pre- 
serving and thinking over, " is a business aggregation 
that springs from the wits of one man. A few years 
ago Thomas Edison was a poor and obscure tele- 
graph operator. To-day, by devising machinery of 
advantage to the human race, he is a millionaire, and 
the means by which others acquire immense wealth. 
Yet no one is injured. The new fortunes come from 
traits of observation and mechanical wit that lay hid 
in the brain of one poor wise man. There are mines 
of the mind that are richer than any which the 
geologist finds in the mountains, and more precious 
gems lie hidden there than can be dug from the 
rocks or washed from the streams of the wilderness." 
This truism might be instilled in the mind of every 
growing youth who desires to gain a name and 
fortune by the cultivation of his brains. He may not 
be an Edison, and he may not possess genius, but 
perseverance will carry him a long way on the road 
to success. As a matter of fact, Edison does not 
think a great deal of so-called " genius." " Genius," 
says some wise man, " is an infinite capacity for 
taking pains," but Edison goes one better when he 
says : " Genius is two per cent, inspiration and ninety- 
eight per cent, perspiration." And let the man who 
believes that he is no " genius," or even particularly 
clever, take this wise remark to heart and he will find 
that Edison is not far wrong in his belief that it is 
hard work that tells and the virtue that will eventually 
land one on the topmost rung of Fortune's ladder. 



372 HIS OPINIONS 

Edison has an excellent ear for music, and the 
statement which one frequently sees made that he 
has a dislike to the phonograph and never listens to 
it is quite wrong. At one time he " passed " every 
record made in the Orange laboratory, and would 
mark them " Good," " Fair," " Bad," or " Very Bad," 
as he thought fit, in order to classify them for the 
trade. These distinctions, of course, did not refer to 
the quality of the record, but rather to the style of 
composition. Some of the " pieces " which he dis- 
liked most often turned out to be the very ones 
which the public liked best, and it became a kind of 
standing joke that when Edison ticketed a record 
"Very Bad" the factory had to work overtime in 
order to supply the demand. When all records were 
made at the Edison laboratory (now they are made 
in New York), singers, reciters, and instrumentalists 
would come down from the city and give their per- 
formances in Mr. Edison's library. So long as the 
" talking machine " was something of a novelty, the 
fees demanded by these artistes were not very heavy, 
but later on the bills for " professional phonographic 
services " swelled considerably, the " services " of 
some singers being almost prohibitive. Edison was 
generally present when the records were made, and 
it surprised him to find that not infrequently the 
most capable singers made the poorest records. On 
more than one occasion when famous soloists had 
been engaged the records, when tested, proved utterly 
worthless. These performers had not the knack of 
singing into a phonograph, and had to go through 
considerable training before becoming successes in 
the phonograph line. Other singers have visited the 
laboratory, whose names were certainly not " house- 
hold words," and who demanded but modest fees, yet 



EDISON'S VOICE ON PHONOGRAPH 373 

their records have been among the best ever made. 
In other words, one must have a regular "phono- 
graphic voice " in order to make a good record, and 
if a singer is denied this then he or she must cultivate 
it — which it is quite possible to do. High sopranos 
are less successful on the phonograph than con- 
traltos, while the violin and other thin, high-toned 
instruments, do not sound so well as double basses, 
'cellos, and harps. In men's voices baritones and 
basses reproduce better than tenors as a general rule, 
though there is no man living who makes a finer 
record than Bonci. 

Edison, by the way, has a distinct objection to 
placing his own voice on record, and on two occa- 
sions only has he been persuaded to do so. When 
perfecting the phonograph he had, of course, to talk 
into the machine, but the records were afterwards 
scraped or destroyed. He says he has no desire 
to see machines adorned with notices announcing 
that by putting a penny in the slot you may " Hear 
Edison Talk." Once he sent his agent, who was in 
London, a " phonogram," and he also said a few 
words in a phonograph for a young man in whom he 
was very much interested. Apart from these two, 
however, there is no record of Edison's voice in 
existence. He has been approached by numberless 
enterprising managers, who have offered him almost 
any sum if he would relate to the phonograph the 
story of how he created it, but to all such requests 
he has turned a deaf ear. And here it may be 
remarked that the statement so frequently made that 
when distinguished visitors call upon Edison at the 
laboratory they are requested to put their voices 
on record is a wrong one. There is no phonograph 
kept for this purpose. The only request made to 



374 HIS OPINIONS 

visitors is that they shall sign their names in the 
" Visitors' Book " — a number of which may be seen 
on the shelves of the library. 

Edison regards the art of inventing very much in 
the light of a profession which may be " learned " 
almost as successfully as soldiering, or acting, or 
even "doctoring." Thousands of men, he thinks, 
might have become inventors had they but cultivated 
their ideas, for the creative germ lies hidden in most 
brains. Observation is one of the greatest assets in 
successful inventing, and the man who sees what is 
wanted and then provides it is the one who makes 
" good." Ideas increase as they are cultivated, and 
the brain must be exercised like any other part of 
the body, for the more one works that mysterious 
" grey matter " the more good will one get out of it. 
As a rule, authors who write a great deal improve 
their "style," and in the same way the more one 
cultivates ideas the more readily will ideas come and 
the better will be their quality. Some inventors are 
"born," of course, but a greater number are " made," 
and the man who says he is entirely lacking in ideas 
is generally the man who is too lazy to cultivate 
them. \ 

Mr. Edison is now engaged on what he considers 
the greatest problem of all — the generation of elec- 
tricity direct from coal. The subject has occupied 
his attention for many years, and now that he has 
practically laid aside his work as a commercial 
inventor he is devoting all his time to the unravelling 
of this fascinating mystery. He has made some 
progress towards success, and has been enabled to 
get a little energy direct from coal, but, unfortunately, 
it has no great force. At present, as every one 
knows, electricity requires another power to gene- 



HIS OPINIONS 375 

rate it, and while this is so it cannot become the 
motor of the world. But when electricity is generated 
direct then steam will become obsolete, and the 
newer power will reign. 

Of the force hidden in coal, about 15 per 
cent, only is available, the other 85 per cent, 
being wasted. That is why it requires so many 
hundreds of tons of coal to propel a liner across the 
Atlantic. When the problem of generating elec- 
tricity direct is solved, then two or three tons of coal 
only will be needed for the same purpose. Edison 
has been experimenting on these lines with his 
customary enthusiasm and determination for twenty 
years without any really satisfactory results, but he 
is not discouraged. His investigations have been 
sufficiently productive of good to spur him on, and 
the problem is one which he will never relinquish as 
long as life lasts. Possibly, he declares with great 
cheerfulness, it may not be his good fortune to dis- 
cover the right means of thus obtaining the true 
force, and if this should be so, then he feels perfectly 
convinced the problem will be solved by some one 
else. Many other scientists are also working on the 
question, and Edison would not be surprised any 
day to learn that it had been solved by some com- 
paratively unknown man. Should such an event 
happen, then Edison would be among the first to 
acknowledge him as the greatest inventor of all 
times. 




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